'MO.  1.  S    P  £1 


B.  C. 


* 

V- 


RUSSIA  IN  1919 


BOOKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

LITERARY  CRITICISM. 

A  History  of  Story-telling.     1909. 

Edgar  Allan  Poe.     1910. 

Oscar  Wilde.     1912. 

Portraits    and    Speculations.     1913. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

The  Souls  of  the  Streets.     1904. 
The  Stone  Lady.     1905. 
Bohemia  in  London.     1907. 

BOOKS  FOB  CHILDREN. 

Highways  and  Byeways  in  Fairyland.     1906. 
The  Trap,  the  Elf  and  the  Ogre.     1906. 
Old  Peter's  Russian  Tales.     1916. 

ROMANCE. 

The  Foofmarks  of  the  Faun  and  other  Stories.     1911. 
The  Elixir  of  Life.     1915. 


RUSSIA  IN   1919 


BY 


ARTHUR  RANSOME 


. 


NEW  YORK  B.W.HUEBSCH  MCMXIX 


COPYRIGHT,     1919, 
BY  B.  W.  HUEBSCH 


Published  August,  1919 
Second  printing,  August,  1919 
Third  printing,  October,  1919 


R3G-3 


tE      -      '     [BRA  BY 

LOCAL  NO.  i,..-s.  P.  OF  c 

VANCOUVER,  B.  C. 
PUBLISHER'S  NOTE 

On  August  27,  1914,  in  London,  I  made  this 
note  in  a  memorandum  book :  "Met  Arthur  Ran- 

some  at 's ;  discussed  a  book  on  the  Russian's 

relation  to  the  war  in  the  light  of  psychological 
background — folklore."  The  book  was  not  writ- 
ten but  the  idea  that  instinctively  came  to  him  per- 
vades his  every  utterance  on  things  Russian. 

The  versatile  man  who  commands  more  than 
respect  as  the  biographer  of  Poe  and  Wilde ;  as  the 
translator  of  and  commentator  on  Remy  de  Gour- 
mont;  as  a  folklorist,  has  shown  himself  to  be 
consecrated  to  the  truth.  The  document  that 
Mr.  Ransome  hurried  out  of  Russia  in  the  early 
days  of  the  Soviet  government  (printed  in  the 
New  Republic  and  then  widely  circulated  as  a 
pamphlet),  was  the  first  notable  appeal  from  a 
non-Russian  to  the  American  people  for  fair  play 
in  a  crisis  understood  then  even  less  than  now. 

iii 


The  British  Who's  Who — that  Almanach  de 
Gotha  of  people  who  do  things  or  choose  their 
parents  wisely — tells  us  that  Mr.  Ransome's  re- 
creations are  "walking,  smoking,  fairy  stories." 
It  is,  perhaps,  his  intimacy  with  the  last  named 
that  enables  him  to  distinguish  between  myth  and 
fact  and  that  makes  his  activity  as  an  observer  and 
recorder  so  valuable  in  a  day  of  bewilderment  and 
betrayal. 

B.  W.  H. 


IV 


1  NO.  1,  OF  C 

VANCOUVER,  B.  C. 

INTRODUCTION 

I  AM  well  aware  that  there  is  material  in  this  book 
which  will  be  misused  by  fools  both  white  and 
red.  That  is  not  my  fault.  My  object  has  been 
narrowly  limited.  I  have  tried  by  means  of  a 
bald  record  of  conversations  and  things  seen,  to 
provide  material  for  those  who  wish  to  know  what 
is  being  done  and  thought  in  Moscow  at  the  pres- 
ent time,  and  demand  something  more  to  go  upon 
than  secondhand  reports  of  wholly  irrelevant  atro- 
cities committed  by  either  one  side  or  the  other, 
and  often  by  neither  one  side  nor  the  other,  but 
by  irresponsible  scoundrels  who,  in  the  natural 
turmoil  of  the  greatest  convulsion  in  the  history 
of  our  civilization,  escape  temporarily  here  and 
there  from  any  kind  of  control. 

The  book  is  in  no  sense  of  the  word  propa- 
ganda. For  propaganda,  for  the  defence  or  at- 
tack of  the  Communist  position,  is  needed  a  knowl- 
edge of  economics,  both  from  the  capitalist  and 
socialist  standpoints,  to  which  I  cannot  pretend. 

v 


Very  many  times  during  the  revolution  it  has 
seemed  to  me  a  tragedy  that  no  Englishman  prop- 
erly equipped  in  this  way  was  in  Russia  study- 
ing the  gigantic  experiment  which,  as  a  country, 
we  are  allowing  to  pass  abused  but  not  examined. 
I  did  my  best.  I  got,  I  think  I  may  say,  as  near 
as  any  foreigner  who  was  not  a  Communist  could 
get  to  what  was  going  on.  But  I  never  lost  the 
bitter  feeling  that  the  opportunities  of  study  which 
I  made  for  myself  were  wasted,  because  I  could 
not  hand  them  on  to  some  other  Englishman, 
whose  education  and  training  would  have  enabled 
him  to  make  a  better,  a  fuller  use  of  them.  Nor 
would  it  have  been  difficult  for  such  a  man  to 
get  the  opportunities  which  were  given  to  me 
when,  by  sheer  persistence  in  enquiry,  I  had  over- 
come the  hostility  which  I  at  first  encountered  as 
the  correspondent  of  a  "bourgeois"  newspaper. 
Such  a  man  could  be  in  Russia  now,  for  the  Com- 
munists do  not  regard  war  as  we  regard  it.  The 
Germans  would  hardly  have  allowed  an  Allied 
Commission  to  come  to  Berlin  a  year  ago  to  in- 
vestigate the  nature  and  working  of  the  Autocracy. 
The  Russians,  on  the  other  hand,  immediately 

vi 


agreed  to  the  suggestion  of  the  Berne  Conference 
that  they  should  admit  a  party  of  socialists,  the 
majority  of  whom,  as  they  well  knew,  had  already 
expressed  condemnation  of  them.  Further,  in 
agreeing  to  this,  they  added  that  they  would  as 
willingly  admit  a  committee  of  enquiry  sent  by 
any  of  the  "bourgeois"  governments  actually  at 
war  with  them. 

I  am  sure  that  there  will  be  many  in  England 
who  will  understand  much  better  than  I  the  drudg- 
ery of  the  revolution  which  is  in  this  book  very 
imperfectly  suggested.  I  repeat  that  it  is  not  my 
fault  that  they  must  make  do  with  the  eyes  and 
ears  of  an  ignorant  observer.  No  doubt  I  have 
not  asked  the  questions  they  would  have  asked, 
and  have  thought  interesting  and  novel  much 
which  they  would  have  taken  for  granted. 

The  book  has  no  particular  form,  other  than 
that  given  it  by  a  more  or  less  accurate  adherence 
to  chronology  in  setting  down  things  seen  and 
heard.  It  is  far  too  incomplete  to  allow  me  to 
call  it  a  Journal.  I  think  I  could  have  made  it 
twice  as  long  without  repetitions,  and  I  am  not 
at  all  sure  that  in  choosing  in  a  hurry  between 

vii 


this  and  that  I  did  not  omit  much  which  could 
witji  advantage  be  substituted  for  what  is  here 
set  down.  There  is  nothing  here  of  my  talk  with 
the  English  soldier  prisoners  and  nothing  of  my 
visit  to  the  officers  confined  in  the  Butyrka  Gaol. 
There  is  nothing  of  the  plagues  of  typhus  and 
influenza,  or  of  the  desperate  situation  of  a  peo- 
ple thus  visited  and  unable  to  procure  from  abroad 
the  simplest  drugs  which  they  cannot  manufacture 
at  home  or  even  the  anaesthetics  necessary  for 
their  wounded  on  every  frontier  of  their  country. 
I  forgot  to  describe  the  ballet  which  I  saw  a  few 
days  before  leaving.  I  have  said  nothing  of  the 
talk  I  had  with  Eliava  concerning  the  Russian 
plans  for  the  future  of  Turkestan.  I  could  think 
of  a  score  of  other  omissions.  Judging  from  what 
I  have  read  since  my  return  from  Russia,  I  imagine 
people  -will  find  my  book  very  poor  in  the  matter 
of  Terrors.  There  is  nothing  here  of  the  Red 
Terror,  or  of  any  of  the  Terrors  on  the  other  side. 
But  for  its  poverty  in  atrocities  my  book  will  be 
blamed  only  by  fanatics,  since  they  alone  desire 
proofs  of  past  Terrors  as  justification  for  new 
ones. 

viii 


On  reading  my  manuscript  through,  I  find  it 
quite  surprisingly  dull.  The  one  thing  that  I 
should  have  liked  to  transmit  through  it  seems 
somehow  to  have  slipped  away.  I  should  have 
liked  to  explain  what  was  the  appeal  of  the  revo- 
lution to  men  like  Colonel  Robins  and  myself, 
both  of  us  men  far  removed  in  origin  and  upbring- 
ing from  the  revolutionary  and  socialist  move- 
ments in  our  own  countries.  Of  course  no  one 
who  was  able,  as  we  were  able,  to  watch  the  men 
of  the  revolution  at  close  quarters  could  believe 
for  a  moment  that  they  were  the  mere  paid  agents 
of  the  very  power  which  more  than  all  others  rep- 
resented the  stronghold  they  had  set  out  to  de- 
stroy. We  had  the  knowledge  of  the  injustice 
being  done  to  these  men  to  urge  us  in  their  de- 
fence. But  there  was  more  in  it  than  that. 
There  was  the  feeling,  from  which  we  could  never 
escape,  of  the  creative  effort  of  the  revolution. 
There  was  the  thing  that  distinguishes  the  creative 
from  other  artists,  the  living,  vivifying  expression 
of  something  hitherto  hidden  in  the  consciousness 
of  humanity.  If  this  book  were  to  be  an  accurate 
record  of  my  own  impressions,  all  the  drudgery, 

ix 


gossip,  quarrels,  arguments,  events  and  experiences 
it  contains  would  have  to  be  set  against  a  back- 
ground of  that  extraordinary  vitality  which  obsti- 
nately persists  in  Moscow  even  in  these  dark  days 
of  discomfort,  disillusion,  pestilence,  starvation 
and  unwanted  war. 

ARTHUR  RANSOME. 


OF  C 

VANCOUVER    : 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

To  PETROGRAD i 

SMOLNI 13 

PETROGRAD  TO  Moscow 20 

FIRST  DAYS  IN  Moscow 25 

THE  EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE  ON   THE  REPLY  TO 
THE  PRINKIPO  PROPOSAL 44 

KAMENEV  AND  THE  Moscow  SOVIET     ....     64 

AN  EX-CAPITALIST 71 

A  THEORIST  OF  REVOLUTION 80 

EFFECTS  OF  ISOLATION 85" 

AN  EVENING  AT  THE  OPERA 88 

THE  COMMITTEE  OF  STATE  CONSTRUCTIONS  .  .  95 
THE  EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE  AND  THE  TERROR  .  108 
NOTES  OF  CONVERSATIONS  WITH  LENIN  .  .  .  .  117 
THE  SUPREME  COUNCIL  OF  PUBLIC  ECONOMY  .  .  124 

THE  RACE  WITH  RUIN 132 

A  PLAY  OF  CHEKHOV 139 

THE  CENTRO-TEXTILE 143 

MODIFICATION  IN  THE  AGRARIAN  PROGRAMME  .  .151 
FOREIGN  TRADE  AND  MUNITIONS  OF  WAR  .  .  .  153 


PAGE 

THE  PROPOSED  DELEGATION  FROM  BERNE    .     .     .156 

THE  EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE  ON  THE  RIVAL  PAR- 
TIES      161 

COMMISSARIAT  OF  LABOUR 170 

EDUCATION        179 

A  BOLSHEVIK  FELLOW  OF  THE  ROYAL  SOCIETY  .     .  189 

DIGRESSION 192 

THE  OPPOSITION    . 194 

THE  THIRD  INTERNATIONAL 213 

LAST  TALK  WITH  LENIN 224 

THE  JOURNEY  OUT 231 


ENDING  LIBRARY 

LOCAL  NCX  1,  S,  P.  OF  C. 

VANCOUVER,  B."  C, 

RUSSIA  IN  1919 

TO  PETROGRAD 

ON  January  30  a  party  of  four  newspaper  corre- 
spondents, two  Norwegians,  a  Swede  and  myself, 
left  Stockholm  to  go  into  Russia.  We  travelled 
with  the  members  of  the  Soviet  Government's 
Legation,  headed  by  Vorovsky  and  Litvinov,  who 
were  going  home  after  the  breaking  off  of  official 
relations  by  Sweden.  Some  months  earlier  I  had 
got  leave  from  the  Bolsheviks  to  go  into  Russia 
to  get  further  material  for  my  history  of  the  revo- 
lution, but  at  the  last  moment  there  was  opposition 
and  it  seemed  likely  that  I  should  be  refused  per- 
mission. Fortunately,  however,  a  copy  of  the 
Morning  Post  reached  Stockholm,  containing  a 
report  of  a  lecture  by  Mr.  Lockhart  in  which  he 
had  said  that  as  I  had  been  out  of  Russia  for  six  • 
months  I  had  no  right  to  speak  of  conditions  there. 

i 


Armed  with  this  I  argued  that  it  would  be  very 
unfair  if  I  were  not  allowed  to  come  and  see  things 
for  myself.  I  had  no  further  difficulties. 

We  crossed  by  boat  to  Abo,  grinding  our  way 
through  the  ice,  and  then  travelled  by  rail  to  the 
Russian  frontier,  taking  several  days  over  the 
journey  owing  to  delays  variously  explained  by 
the  Finnish  authorities.  We  were  told  that  the 
Russian  White  Guards  had  planned  an  attack  on 
the  train.  Litvinov,  half-smiling,  wondered  if 
they  were  purposely  giving  time  to  the  White 
Guards  to  organize  such  an  attack.  Several  nerv- 
ous folk  inclined  to  that  opinion.  But  at  Viborg 
we  were  told  that  there  were  grave  disorders  in 
Petrograd  and  that  the  Finns  did  not  wish  to  fling 
us  into  the  middle  of  a  scrimmage.  Then  some- 
one obtained  a  newspaper  and  we  read  a  detailed 
account  of  what  was  happening.  This  account 
was,  as  I  learnt  on  my  return,  duly  telegraphed  to 
England  like  much  other  news  of  a  similar  char- 
acter. There  had  been  a  serious  revolt  in  Petro- 
grad. The  Semenovsky  regiment  had  gone  over 
to  the  mutineers,  who  had  seized  the  town.  The 
Government,  however,  had  escaped  to  Kronstadt, 

2 


whence   they   were   bombarding  Petrograd   with 
naval  guns. 

This  sounded  fairly  lively,  but  there  was  noth- 
ing to  be  done,  so  we  finished  up  the  chess  tourna- 
ment we  had  begun  on  the  boat.  An  Esthonian 
won  it,  and  I  was  second,  by  reason  of  a  lucky  win 
over  Litvinov,  who  is  really  a  better  player.  By 
Sunday  night  we  reached  Terijoki  and  on  Monday 
moved  slowly  to  the  frontier  of  Finland  close  to 
Bieloostrov.  A  squad  of  Finnish  soldiers  was 
waiting,  excluding  everybody  from  the  station 
and  seeing  that  no  dangerous  revolutionary  should 
break  away  on  Finnish  territory.  There  were  no 
horses,  but  three  hand  sledges  were  brought,  and 
we  piled  the  luggage  on  them,  and  then  set  off  to 
walk  to  the  frontier  duly  convoyed  by  the  Finns. 
A  Finnish  lieutenant  walked  at  the  head  of  the 
procession,  chatting  good-humouredly  in  Swedish 
and  German,  much  as  a  man  might  think  it  worth 
while  to  be  kind  to  a  crowd  of  unfortunates  just 
about  to  be  flung  into  a  boiling  cauldron.  We 
walked  a  few  hundred  yards  along  the  line  and 
then  turned  into  a  road  deep  in  snow  through  a 
little  bare  wood,  and  so  down  to  the  little  wooden 

3 


bridge  over  the  narrow  frozen  stream  that  sepa- 
rates Finland  from  Russia.  The  bridge,  not 
twenty  yards  across,  has  a  toll  bar  at  each  end, 
two  sentry  boxes  and  two  sentries.  On  the  Rus- 
sian side  the  bar  was  the  familiar  black  and  white 
of  the  old  Russian  Empire,  with  a  sentry  box  to 
match.  The  Finns  seemingly  had  not  yet  had 
time  to  paint  their  bar  and  box. 

The  Finns  lifted  their  toll  bar,  and  the  Finn- 
ish officers  leading  our  escort  walked  solemnly  to 
the  middle  of  the  bridge.  Then  the  luggage  was 
dumped  there,  while  we  stood  watching  the  trem- 
bling of  the  rickety  little  bridge  under  the  weight 
of  our  belongings,  for  we  were  all  taking  in  with 
us  as  much  food  as  we  decently  could.  We  were 
none  of  us  allowed  on  the  bridge  until  an  officer 
and  a  few  men  had  come  down  to  meet  us  on  the 
Russian  side.  Only  little  Nina,  Vorovsky's 
daughter,  about  ten  years  old,  chattering  Swed- 
ish with  the  Finns,  got  leave  from  them,  and 
shyly,  step  by  step,  went  down  the  other  side  of 
the  bridge  and  struck  up  acquaintance  with  the 
soldier  of  the  Red  Army  who  stood  there,  gun 
in  hand,  and  obligingly  bent  to  show  her  the 

4 


sign,  set  in  his  hat,  of  the  crossed  sickle  and  ham- 
mer of  the  Peasants'  and  Workmen's  Republic. 
At  last  the  Finnish  lieutenant  took  the  list  of  his 
prisoners  and  called  out  the  names  "Vorovsky, 
wife  and  one  bairn,"  looking  laughingly  over  his 
shoulder  at  Nina  flirting  with  the  sentry.  Then 
"Litvinov,"  and  so  on  through  all  the  Russians, 
about  thirty  of  them.  We  four  visitors,  Grim- 
lund  the  Swede,  Puntervald  and  Stang,  the  Nor- 
wegians, and  I,  came  last.  At  last,  after  a  gen- 
eral shout  of  farewell,  and  "Helse  Finland"  from 
Nina,  the  Finns  turned  and  went  back  into  their 
civilization,  and  we  went  forward  into  the  new 
struggling  civilization  of  Russia.  Crossing  that 
bridge  we  passed  from  one  philosophy  to  another, 
from  one  extreme  of  the  class  struggle  to  the  other, 
from  a  dictatorship  of  the  bourgeoisie  to  a  dicta- 
torship of  the  proletariat. 

The  contrast  was  noticeable  at  once.  On  the 
Finnish  side  of  the  frontier  we  had  seen  the 
grandiose  new  frontier  station,  much  larger  than 
could  possibly  be  needed,  but  quite  a  good  ex- 
pression of  the  spirit  of  the  new  Finland.  On 
the  Russian  side  we  came  to  the  same  grey  old 

5 


wooden  station  known  to  all  passengers  to  and 
from  Russia  for  polyglot  profanity  and  passport 
difficulties.  There  were  no  porters,  which  was 
not  surprising  because  there  is  barbed  wire  and 
an  extremely  hostile  sort  of  neutrality  along  the 
frontier  and  traffic  across  has  practically  ceased. 
In  the  buffet,  which  was  very  cold,  no  food  could 
be  bought.  The  long  tables  once  laden  with  ca- 
viare and  other  zakuski  were  bare.  There  was, 
however,  a  samovar,  and  we  bought  tea  at  sixty 
kopecks  a  glass  and  lumps  of  sugar  at  two  roubles 
fifty  each.  We  took  our  tea  into  the  inner  pass- 
port room,  where  I  think  a  stove  must  have  been 
burning  the  day  before,  and  there  made  some  sort 
of  a  meal  off  some  of  Puntervald's  Swedish  hard- 
bread.  It  is  difficult  to  me  to  express  the  curious 
mixture  of  depression  and  exhilaration  that  was 
given  to  the  party  by  this  derelict  starving  station 
combined  with  the  feeling  that  we  were  no  longer 
under  guard  but  could  do  more  or  less  as  we 
liked.  It  split  the  party  into  two  factions,  of 
which  one  wept  while  the  other  sang.  Madame 
Vorovsky,  who  had  not  been  in  Russia  since  the 
first  revolution,  frankly  wept,  but  she  wept  still 

6 


more  in  Moscow  where  she  found  that  even  as  the 
wife  of  a  high  official  of  the  Government  she  en- 
joyed no  privileges  which  would  save  her  from 
the  hardships  of  the  population.  But  the  younger 
members  of  the  party,  together  with  Litvinov, 
found  their  spirits  irrepressibly  rising  in  spite  of 
having  no  dinner.  They  walked  about  the  vil- 
lage, played  with  the  children,  and  sang,  not  revo- 
lutionary songs,  but  just  jolly  songs,  any  songs 
that  came  into  their  heads.  When  at  last  the 
train  came  to  take  us  into  Petrograd,  and  we  found 
that  the  carriages  were  unheated,  somebody  got 
out  a  mandoline  and  we  kept  ourselves  warm  by 
dancing.  At  the  same  time  I  was  sorry  for  the 
five  children  who  were  with  us,  knowing  that  a 
country  simultaneously  suffering  war,  blockade 
and  revolution  is  not  a  good  place  for  child- 
hood. But  they  had  caught  the  mood  of  their 
parents,  revolutionaries  going  home  to  their  revo- 
lution, and  trotted  excitedly  up  and  down  the 
carriage  or  anchored  themselves  momentarily,  first 
on  one  person's  knee  and  then  on  another's. 

It  was  dusk  when  we  reached  Petrograd.     The 
Finland  Station,  of  course,  was  nearly  deserted, 

7 


but  here  there  were  four  porters,  who  charged 
two  hundred  and  fifty  roubles  for  shifting  the 
luggage  of  the  party  from  one  end  of  the  plat- 
form to  the  other.  We  ourselves  loaded  it  into 
the  motor  lorry  sent  to  meet  us,  as  at  Bieloostrov 
we  had  loaded  it  into  the  van.  There  was  a  long 
time  to  wait  while  rooms  were  being  allotted  to 
us  in  various  hotels,  and  with  several  others  I 
walked  outside  the  station  to  question  people  about 
the  mutiny  and  the  bombardment  of  which  we 
had  heard  in  Finland.  Nobody  knew  anything 
about  it.  As  soon  as  the  rooms  were  allotted  and 
I  knew  that  I  had  been  lucky  enough  to  get  one 
in  the  Astoria,  I  drove  off  across  the  frozen  river 
by  the  Liteini  Bridge.  The  trams  were  running. 
The  town  seemed  absolutely  quiet,  and  away 
down  the  river  I  saw  once  again  in  the  dark, 
which  is  never  quite  dark  because  of  the  snow, 
the  dim  shape  of  the  fortress,  and  passed  one  by 
one  the  landmarks  I  had  come  to  know  so  well 
during  the  last  six  years — the  Summer  Garden, 
the  British  Embassy,  and  the  great  Palace  Square 
where  I  had  seen  armoured  cars  flaunting  about 
during  the  July  rising,  soldiers  camping  during 

8 


the  hysterical  days  of  the  Kornilov  affair  and, 
earlier,  Kornilov  himself  reviewing  the  Junkers. 
My  mind  went  further  back  to  the  March  revo- 
lution, and  saw  once  more  the  picket  fire  of  the 
revolutionaries  at  the  corner  that  night  when  the 
remains  of  the  Tzar's  Government  were  still  fran- 
tically printing  proclamations  ordering  the  people 
to  go  home,  at  the  very  moment  while  they  them- 
selves were  being  besieged  in  the  Admiralty. 
Then  it  flung  itself  further  back  still,  to  the  day 
of  the  declaration  of  war,  when  I  saw  this  same 
square  filled  with  people,  while  the  Tzar  came 
out  for  a  moment  on  the  Palace  balcony.  By  that 
time  we  were  pulling  up  at  the  Astoria  and  I  had 
to  turn  my  mind  to  something  else. 

The  Astoria  is  now  a  bare  barrack  of  a  place, 
but  comparatively  clean.  During  the  war  and 
the  first  part  of  the  revolution  it  was  tenanted 
chiefly  by  officers,  and  owing  to  the  idiocy  of  a 
few  of  these  at  the  time  of  the  first  revolution  in 
shooting  at  a  perfectly  friendly  crowd  of  soldiers 
and  sailors,  who  came  there  at  first  with  no  other 
object  than  to  invite  the  officers  to  join  them,  the 
place  was  badly  smashed  up  in  the  resulting  scrim- 

9 


mage.  I  remember  with  Major  Scale  fixing  up 
a  paper  announcing  the  fall  of  Bagdad  either  the 
night  this  happened  or  perhaps  the  night  before. 
People  rushed  up  to  it,  thinking  it  some  news  about 
the  revolution,  and  turned  impatiently  away.  All 
the  damage  has  been  repaired,  but  the  red  carpets 
have  gone,  perhaps  to  make  banners,  and  many 
of  the  electric  lights  were  not  burning,  probably 
because  of  the  shortage  in  electricity.  I  got  my 
luggage  upstairs  to  a  very  pleasant  room  on  the 
fourth  floor.  Every  floor  of  that  hotel  had  its 
memories  for  me.  In  this  room  lived  that  brave 
reactionary  officer  who  boasted  that  he  had  made 
a  raid  on  the  Bolsheviks  and  showed  little  Ma- 
dame Kollontai's  hat  as  a  trophy.  In  this  I  used 
to  listen  to  Perceval  Gibbon  when  he  was  talking 
about  how  to  write  short  stories  and  having  in- 
fluenza. There  was  the  room  where  Miss  Beatty 
used  to  give  tea  to  tired  revolutionaries  and  to  still 
more  tired  enquirers  into  the  nature  of  revolution 
while  she  wrote  the  only  book  that  has  so  far 
appeared  which  gives  anything  like  a  true  impres- 
ionist  picture  of  those  unforgettable  days.1  Close 

1  "The  Red  Heart  of  Russia." 
10 


by  was  the  room  where  poor  Denis  Garstin  used 
to  talk  of  the  hunting  he  would  have  when  the 
war  should  come  to  an  end. 

I  enquired  for  a  meal,  and  found  that  no  food 
was  to  be  had  in  the  hotel,  but  they  could  supply 
hot  water.  Then,  to  get  an  appetite  for  sleep,  I 
went  out  for  a  short  walk,  though  I  did  not  much 
like  doing  so  with  nothing  but  an  English  pass- 
port, and  with  no  papers  to  show  that  I  had  any 
right  to  be  there.  I  had,  like  the  other  foreign- 
ers, been  promised  such  papers  but  had  not  yet 
received  them.  I  went  round  to  the  Regina, 
which  used  to  be  one  of  the  best  hotels  in  the 
town,  but  those  of  us  who  had  rooms  there  were 
complaining  so  bitterly  that  I  did  not  stay  with 
them,  but  went  off  along  the  Moika  to  the  Nevsky 
and  so  back  to  my  own  hotel.  The  streets,  like 
the  hotel,  were  only  half  lit,  and  hardly  any  of 
the  houses  had  a  lighted  window.  In  the  old 
sheepskin  coat  I  had  worn  on  the  front  and  in 
my  high  fur  hat,  I  felt  like  some  ghost  of  the  old 
regime  visiting  a  town  long  dead.  The  silence 
and  emptiness  of  the  streets  contributed  to  this 
effect.  Still,  the  few  people  I  met  or  passed  were 

11 


talking  cheerfully  together  and  the  rare  sledges 
and  motors  had  comparatively  good  roads,  the 
streets  being  certainly  better  swept  and  cleaned 
than  they  have  been  since  the  last  winter  of  the 
Russian  Empire. 


12 


SMOLNI 

EARLY  in  the  morning  I  got  tea,  and  a  bread  card 
on  which  I  was  given  a  very  small  allowance  of 
brown  bread,  noticeably  better  in  quality  than 
the  compound  of  clay  and  straw  which  made  me 
ill  in  Moscow  last  summer.  Then  I  went  to 
find  Litvinov,  and  set  out  with  him  to  walk  to  the 
Smolni  institute,  once  a  school  for  the  daughters 
of  the  aristocracy,  then  the  headquarters  of  the 
Soviet,  then  the  headquarters  of  the  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment, and  finally,  after  the  Government's 
evacuation  to  Moscow,  bequeathed  to  the  North- 
ern Commune  and  the  Petrograd  Soviet.  The 
town,  in  daylight,  seemed  less  deserted,  though  it 
was  obvious  that  the  "unloading"  of  the  Petrograd 
population,  which  was  unsuccessfully  attempted 
during  the  Kerensky  regime,  had  been  accom- 
plished to  a  large  extent.  This  has  been  partly 
the  result  of  famine  and  of  the  stoppage  of  fac- 

13 


tories,  which  in  its  turn  is  due  to  the  impossibility 
of  bringing  fuel  and  raw  material  to  Petrograd. 
A  very  large  proportion  of  Russian  factory  hands 
have  not,  as  in  other  countries,  lost  their  connec- 
tion with  their  native  villages.  There  was  al- 
ways a  considerable  annual  migration  backwards 
and  forwards  between  the  villages  and  the  town, 
and  great  numbers  of  workmen  have  gone  home, 
carrying  with  them  the  ideas  of  the  revolution. 
It  should  also  be  remembered  that  the  bulk  of 
the  earlier  formed  units  of  the  Red  Army  is  com- 
posed of  workmen  from  the  towns  who,  except 
in  the  case  of  peasants  mobilized  in  districts  which 
have  experienced  an  occupation  by  the  counter- 
revolutionaries, are  more  determined  and  better 
understand  the  need  for  discipline  than  the  men 
from  the  country. 

The  most  noticeable  thing  In  Petrograd  to  any- 
one returning  after  six  months'  absence  is  the 
complete  disappearance  of  armed  men.  The  town 
seems  to  have  returned  to  a  perfectly  peaceable 
condition  in  the  sense  that  the  need  for  revolu- 
tionary patrols  has  gone.  Soldiers  walking  about 
no  longer  carry  their  rifles,  and  the  picturesque 


figures  of  the  revolution  who  wore  belts  of  ma- 
chine-gun cartridges  slung  about  their  persons 
have  gone. 

The  second  noticeable  thing,  especially  in  the 
Nevsky,  which  was  once  crowded  with  people  too 
fashionably  dressed,  is  the  general  lack  of  new 
clothes.  I  did  not  see  anybody  wearing  clothes 
that  looked  less  than  two  years  old,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  some  officers  and  soldiers  who  are  as 
well  equipped  nowadays  as  at  the  beginning  of 
the  war.  Petrograd  ladies  were  particularly  fond 
of  boots,  and  of  boots  there  is  an  extreme  short- 
age. I  saw  one  young  woman  in  a  well-preserved, 
obviously  costly  fur  coat,  and  beneath  it  straw 
shoes  with  linen  wrappings. 

We  had  started  rather  late,  so  we  took  a  tram 
half-way  up  the  Nevsky.  The  tram  conductors 
are  still  women.  The  price  of  tickets  has  risen 
to  a  rouble,  usually,  I  noticed,  paid  in  stamps. 
It  used  to  be  ten  kopecks. 

The  armoured  car  which  used  to  stand  at  the 
entrance  of  Smolni  has  disappeared  and  been  re- 
placed by  a  horrible  statue  of  Karl  Marx,  who 
stands,  thick  and  heavy,  on  a  stout  pedestal,  hold- 

15 


ing  behind  him  an  enormous  top-hat  like  the  muz- 
zle of  an  eighteen-inch  gun.  The  only  signs  of 
preparations  for  defence  that  remain  are  the  pair 
of  light  field  guns  which,  rather  the  worse  for 
weather,  still  stand  under  the  pillars  of  the  portico 
which  they  would  probably  shake  to  pieces  if  ever 
they  should  be  fired.  Inside  the  routine  was  as 
it  used  to  be,  and  when  I  turned  down  the  passage 
to  get  my  permit  to  go  upstairs,  I  could  hardly 
believe  that  I  had  been  away  for  so  long.  The 
place  is  emptier  than  it  was.  There  is  not  the 
same  eager  crowd  of  country  delegates  pressing 
up  and  down  the  corridors  and  collecting  litera- 
ture from  the  stalls  that  I  used  to  see  in  the  old 
days  when  the  serious  little  workman  from  the 
Viborg  side  stood  guard  over  Trotsky's  door,  and 
from  the  alcove  with  its  window  looking  down 
into  the  great  hall,  the  endless  noise  of  debate 
rose  from  the  Petrograd  Soviet  that  met  below. 

Litvinov  invited  me  to  have  dinner  with  the 
Petrograd  Commissars,  which  I  was  very  glad  to 
do,  partly  because  I  was  hungry  and  partly  because 
I  thought  it  would  be  better  to  meet  Zinoviev  thus 
than  in  any  other  manner,  remembering  how  sourly 

16 


he  had  looked  upon  me  earlier  in  the  revolution. 
Zinoviev  is  a  Jew,  with  a  lot  of  hair,  a  round 
smooth  face,  and  a  very  abrupt  manner.  He  was 
against  the  November  Revolution,  but  when  it 
had  been  accomplished  returned  to  his  old  alle- 
giance to  Lenin  and,  becoming  President  of  the 
Northern  Commune,  remained  in  Petrograd  when 
.he  Government  moved  to  Moscow.  He  is  neither 
an  original  thinker  nor  a  good  orator  except  in 
debate,  in  answering  opposition,  which  he  does 
with  extreme  skill.  His  nerve  was  badly  shaken 
by  the  murders  of  his  friends  Volodarsky  and 
Uritzky  last  year,  and  he  is  said  to  have  lost  his 
head  after  the  attack  on  Lenin,  to  whom  he  is  ex- 
tremely devoted.  I  have  heard  many  Com- 
munists attribute  to  this  fact  the  excesses  which 
followed  that  event  in  Petrograd.  I  have  never 
noticed  anything  that  would  make  me  consider 
him  pro-German,  though  of  course  he  is  pro-Marx. 
He  has,  however,  a  decided  prejudice  against  the 
English.  He  was  among  the  Communists  who 
put  difficulties  in  my  way  as  a  "bourgeois  jour- 
nalist" in  the  earlier  days  of  the  revolution,  and 
I  had  heard  that  he  had  expressed  suspicion 

17 


and  disapproval  of  Radek's  intimacy  with  me. 
I  was  amused  to  see  his  face  when  he  came  in 
and  saw  me  sitting  at  the  table.  Litvinov  intro- 
duced me  to  him,  very  tactfully  telling  him  of 
Lockhart's  attack  upon  me,  whereupon  he  became 
quite  decently  friendly,  and  said  that  if  I  could 
stay  a  few  days  in  Petrograd  on  my  way  back  from 
Moscow  he  would  see  that  I  had  access  to  the  his- 
torical material  I  wanted  about  the  doings  of  the 
Petrograd  Soviet  during  the  time  I  had  been  away. 
I  told  him  I  was  surprised  to  find  him  here  and 
not  at  Kronstadt,  and  asked  about  the  mutiny  and 
the  treachery  of  the  Semenovsky  regiment.  There 
was  a  shout  of  laughter,  and  Pozern  explained 
that  there  was  no  Semenovsky  regiment  in  exist- 
ence, and  that  the  manufacturers  of  the  story, 
every  word  of  which  was  a  lie,  had  no  doubt  tried 
to  give  realism  to  it  by  putting  in  the  name  of 
the  regiment  which  had  taken  a  chief  part  in  put- 
ting down  the  Moscow  insurrection  of  fourteen 
years  ago.  Pozern,  a  thin,  bearded  man,  with 
glasses,  was  sitting  at  the  other  end  of  the  table, 
as  Military  Commissar  of  the  Northern  Com- 
mune. 

18 


Dinner  in  Smolni  was  the  same  informal  affair 
that  it  was  in  the  old  days,  only  with  much  less 
to  eat.  The  Commissars,  men  and  women,  came 
in  from  their  work,  took  their  places,  fed  and  went 
back  to  work  again,  Zinoviev  in  particular  stay- 
ing only  a  few  minutes.  The  meal  was  extremely 
simple,  soup  with  shreds  of  horse-flesh  in  it,  very 
good  indeed,  followed  by  a  little  kasha  together 
with  small  slabs  of  some  sort  of  white  stuff  of  no 
particular  consistency  or  taste,  Then  tea  and  a 
lump  of  sugar.  The  conversation  was  mostly 
about  the  chances  of  peace,  and  Litvinov's  rather 
pessimistic  reports  were  heard  with  disappoint- 
ment. Just  as  I  had  finished,  Vorovsky,  Madame 
Vorovsky  and  little  Nina,  together  with  the  two 
Norwegians  and  the  Swede,  came  in.  I  learnt 
that  about  half  the  party  were  going  on  to  Mos- 
cow that  night  and,  deciding  to  go  with  them, 
hurried  off  to  the  hotel. 


PETROGRAD  TO  MOSCOW 

THERE  was,  of  course,  a  dreadful  scrimmage 
about  getting  away.  Several  people  were  not 
ready  at  the  last  minute.  Only  one  motor  was 
obtainable  for  nine  persons  with  their  light  lug- 
gage, and  a  motor  lorry  for  the  heavy  things.  I 
chose  to  travel  on  the  lorry  with  the  luggage  and 
had  a  fine  bumpity  drive  to  the  station,  reminding 
me  of  similar  though  livelier  experiences  in  the 
earlier  days  of  the  revolution  when  lorries  were 
used  for  the  transport  of  machine  guns,  red  guards, 
orators,  enthusiasts  of  all  kinds,  and  any  stray  per- 
sons who  happened  to  clamber  on. 

At  the  Nikolai  Station  we  found  perfect  order 
until  we  got  into  our  wagon,  an  old  third-class 
wagon,  in  which  a  certain  number  of  places  which 
one  of  the  party  had  reserved  had  been  occupied 
by  people  who  had  no  right  to  be  there.  Even 
this  difficulty  was  smoothed  out  in  a  manner  that 

20 


would  have  been  impossible  a  year  or  even  six 
months  ago. 

The  wagon  was  divided  by  a  door  in  the  middle. 
There  were  open  coupes  and  side  seats  which  be- 
came plank  beds  when  necessary.  We  slept  in 
three  tiers  on  the  bare  boards.  I  had  a  very  de- 
cent place  on  the  second  tier,  and,  by  a  bit  of  good 
luck,  the  topmost  bench  over  my  head  was  occu- 
pied only  by  luggage,  which  gave  me  room  to 
climb  up  there  and  sit  more  or  less  upright  under 
the  roof  with  my  legs  dangling  above  the  general 
tumult  of  mothers,  babies,  and  Bolsheviks  below. 
At  each  station  at  which  the  train  stopped  there 
was  a  general  procession  backwards  and  forwards 
through  the  wagon.  Everybody  who  had  a  kettle 
or  a  coffee-pot  or  a  tin  can,  or  even  an  empty  meat 
tin,  crowded  through  the  carriage  and  out  to  get 
boiling  water.  I  had  nothing  but  a  couple  of 
thermos  flasks,  but  with  these  I  joined  the  others. 
From  every  carriage  on  the  train  people  poured 
out  and  hurried  to  the  taps.  No  one  controlled 
the  taps  but,  with  the  instinct  for  co-operation  for 
which  Russians  are  remarkable,  people  formed 
themselves  automatically  into  queues,  and  by  the 

21 


time  the  train  started  again  everybody  was  back 
in  his  place  and  ready  for  a  general  tea-drinking. 
This  performance  was  repeated  again  and  again 
throughout  the  night.  People  dozed  off  to  sleep, 
woke  up,  drank  more  tea,  and  joined  in  the  vari- 
ous conversations  that  went  on  in  different  parts 
of  the  carriage.  Up  aloft,  I  listened  first  to  one 
and  then  to  another.  Some  were  grumbling  at 
the  price  of  food.  Others  were  puzzling  why 
other  nations  insisted  on  being  at  war  with  them. 
One  man  said  he  was  a  co-operator  who  had  come 
by  roundabout  ways  from  Archangel,  and  describ- 
ing the  discontent  there,  told  a  story  which  I  give 
as  an  illustration  of  the  sort  of  thing  that  is  being 
said  in  Russia  by  non-Bolsheviks.  This  man,  in 
spite  of  the  presence  of  many  Communists  in  the 
carriage,  did  not  disguise  his  hostility  to  their 
theories  and  practice,  and  none  the  less  told  this 
story.  He  said  that  some  of  the  Russian  troops 
in  the  Archangel  district  refused  to  go  to  the  front. 
Their  commanders,  unable  to  compel  them,  re- 
signed and  were  replaced  by  others  who,  since  the 
men  persisted  in  refusal,  appealed  for  help.  The 
barracks,  so  he  said,  were  then  surrounded  by 

22 


American  troops,  and  the  Russians,  who  had  re- 
fused to  go  to  the  front  to  fire  on  other  Russians, 
were  given  the  choice,  either  that  every  tenth  man 
should  be  shot,  or  that  they  should  give  up  their 
ringleaders.  The  ringleaders,  twelve  in  number, 
were  given  up,  were  made  to  dig  their  own  graves, 
and  shot.  The  whole  story  may  well  be  Arch- 
angel gossip.  If  so,  as  a  specimen  of  such  gossip, 
it  is  not  without  significance.  In  another  part  of 
the  carriage  an  argument  on  the  true  nature  of 
selfishness  caused  some  heat  because  the  dispu- 
tants insisted  on  drawing  their  illustrations  from 
each  other's  conduct.  Then  there  was  the  diver- 
sion of  a  swearing  match  at  a  wayside  station 
between  the  conductor  and  some  one  who  tried  to 
get  into  this  carriage  and  should  have  got  into 
another.  Both  were  fluent  and  imaginative 
swearers,  and  even  the  man  from  Archangel 
stopped  talking  to  listen  to  them.  One,  I  re- 
member, prayed  vehemently  that  the  other's  hand 
might  fly  off,  and  the. other,  not  to  be  outdone, 
retorted  with  a  similar  prayer  with  regard  to  the 
former's  head.  In  England  the  dispute,  which 
became  very  fierce  indeed,  would  have  ended  in 

23 


assault,  but  here  it  ended  in  nothing  but  the  col- 
lection on  the  platform  of  a  small  crowd  of  ex- 
perts in  bad  language  who  applauded  verbal  hits 
with  impartiality  and  enthusiasm. 

At  last  I  tried  to  sleep,  but  the  atmosphere  in 
the  carriage,  of  smoke,  babies,  stale  clothes,  and 
the  peculiar  smell  of  the  Russian  peasantry  which 
no  one  who  has  known  it  can  forget,  made  sleep 
impossible.  But  I  travelled  fairly  comfortably, 
resolutely  shutting  my  ears  to  the  talk,  thinking 
of  fishing  in  England,  and  shifting  from  one  bone 
to  another  as  each  ached  in  turn  from  contact  with 
the  plank  on  which  I  lay. 


FIRST  DAYS  IN  MOSCOW 

IT  was  a  rare  cold  day  when  I  struggled  through 
the  crowd  out  of  the  station  in  Moscow,  and  be- 
gan fighting  with  the  sledge-drivers  who  asked  a 
hundred  roubles  to  take  me  to  the  Metropole.  I 
remembered  coming  here  a  year  ago  with  Colonel 
Robins,  when  we  made  ten  roubles  a  limit  for  the 
journey  and  often  travelled  for  eight.  To-day, 
after  heated  bargaining,  I  got  carried  with  no 
luggage  but  a  typewriter  for  fifty  roubles.  The 
streets  were  white  with  deep  snow,  less  well 
cleaned  than  the  Petrograd  streets  of  this  year 
but  better  cleaned  than  the  Moscow  streets  of  last 
year.  The  tramways  were  running.  There 
seemed  to  be  at  least  as  many  sledges  as  usual, 
and  the  horses  were  in  slightly  better  condition 
than  last  summer  when  they  were  scarcely  able  to 
drag  themselves  along.  I  asked  the  reason  of  the 
improvement,  and  the  driver  told  me  the  horses 

25 


were  now  rationed  like  human  beings,  and  all  got 
a  small  allowance  of  oats.  There  were  crowds 
of  people  about,  but  the  numbers  of  closed  shops 
were  very  depressing.  I  did  not  then  know  that 
this  was  due  to  the  nationalization  of  trade  and  a 
sort  of  general  stock-taking,  the  object  of  which 
was  to  prevent  profiteering  in  manufactured  goods, 
etc.,  of  which  there  were  not  enough  to  go  round. 
Before  I  left  many  shops  were  being  reopened  as 
national  concerns,  like  our  own  National  Kitchens. 
Thus,  one  would  see  over  a  shop  the  inscription, 
'The  5th  Boot  Store  of  the  Moscow  Soviet"  or 
"The  3rd  Clothing  Store  of  the  Moscow  Soviet"' 
or  "The  nth  Book  Shop."  It  had  been  found 
that  speculators  bought,  for  example,  half  a  dozen 
overcoats,  and  sold  them  to  the  highest  bidders, 
thus  giving  the  rich  an  advantage  over  the  poor. 
Now  if  a  man  needs  a  new  suit  he  has  to  go  in  his 
rags  to  his  House  Committee,  and  satisfy  them 
that  he  really  needs  a  new  suit  for  himself.  He  is 
then  given  the  right  to  buy  a  suit.  In  this  way 
an  attempt  is  made  to  prevent  speculation  and 
to  ensure  a  more  or  less  equitable  distribution  of 
the  inadequate  stocks.  My  greatest  surprise  was 

26 


given  me  by  the  Metropole  itself,  because  the  old 
wounds  of  the  revolution,  which  were  left  un- 
healed  all  last  summer,  the  shell-holes  and  bullet 
splashes  which  marked  it  when  I  was  here  before, 
have  been  repaired. 

Litvinov  had  given  me  a  letter  to  Karakhan  of 
the  Commissariat  of  Foreign  Affairs,  asking  him 
to  help  me  in  getting  a  room.  I  found  him  at 
the  Metropole,  still  smoking  as  it  were  the  cigar 
of  six  months  ago.  Karakhan,  a  handsome  Ar- 
menian, elegantly  bearded  and  moustached,  once 
irreverently  described  by  Radek  as  "a  donkey  of 
classical  beauty,"  who  has  consistently  used  such 
influence  as  he  has  in  favour  of  moderation  and 
agreement  with  the  Allies,  greeted  me  very  cor- 
dially, and  told  me  that  the  foreign  visitors  were 
to  be  housed  in  the  Kremlin.  I  told  him  I  should 
much  prefer  to  live  in  an  hotel  in  the  ordinary 
way,  and  he  at  once  set  about  getting  a  room  for 
me.  This  was  no  easy  business,  though  he  ob- 
tained an  authorization  from  Sverdlov,  president 
of  the  executive  committee,  for  me  to  live  where 
I  wished,  in  the  Metropole  or  the  National,  which 
are  mostly  reserved  for  Soviet  delegates,  officials 

27 


and  members  of  the  Executive  Committee.  Both 
were  full,  and  he  finally  got  me  a  room  in  the  old 
Loskutnaya  Hotel,  now  the  Red  Fleet,  partially 
reserved  for  sailor  delegates  and  members  of  the 
Naval  College. 

Rooms  are  distributed  on  much  the  same  plan 
as  clothes.  Housing  is  considered  a  State  monop- 
oly, and  a  general  census  of  housing  accommoda- 
tion has  been  taken.  In  every  district  there  are 
housing  committees  to  whom  people  wanting 
rooms  apply.  They  work  on  the  rough  and  ready 
theory  that  until  every  man  has  one  room  no 
one  has  a  right  to  two.  An  Englishman  acting 
as  manager  of  works  near  Moscow  told  me  that 
part  of  his  house  had  been  allotted  to  workers  in 
his  factory,  who,  however,  were  living  with  him 
amicably,  and  had,  I  think,  allowed  him  to  choose 
which  rooms  he  should  concede.  This  plan  has, 
of  course,  proved  very  hard  on  house-owners,  and 
in  some  cases  the  new  tenants  have  made  a  hor- 
rible mess  of  the  houses,  as  might,  indeed,  have 
been  expected,  seeing  that  they  had  previously 
been  of  those  who  had  suffered  directly  from  the 
decivilizing  influences  of  overcrowding.  After 

28 


talking  for  some  time  we  went  round  the  corner  to 
the  Commissariat  for  Foreign  Affairs,  where  we 
found  Chicherin  who,  I  thought,  had  aged  a  good 
deal  and  was  (though  this  was  perhaps  his  man- 
ner) less  cordial  than  Karakhan.  He  asked  about 
England,  and  I  told  him  Litvinov  knew  more 
about  that  than  I,  since  he  had  been  there  more 
recently.  He  asked  what  I  thought  would  be 
the  effect  of  his  Note  with  detailed  terms  pub- 
lished that  day.  I  told  him  that  Litvinov,  in  an 
interview  which  I  had  telegraphed,  had  mentioned 
somewhat  similar  terms  some  time  before,  and  that 
personally  I  doubted  whether  the  Allies  would  at 
present  come  to  any  agreement  with  the  Soviet 
Government,  but  that,  if  the  Soviet  Government 
lasted,  my  personal  opinion  was  that  the  commer- 
cial isolation  of  so  vast  a  country  as  Russia  could 
hardly  be  prolonged  indefinitely  on  that  account 
alone.  (For  the  general  attitude  to  that  Note, 
see  page  44.) 

I  then  met  Voznesensky  (Left  Social  Revolu- 
tionary), of  the  Oriental  Department,  bursting 
with  criticism  of  the  Bolshevik  attitude  towards 
his  party.  He  secured  a  ticket  for  me  to  get  din- 

29 


ner  in  the  Metropole.  This  ticket  I  had  to  sur- 
render when  I  got  a  room  in  the  National.  The 
dinner  consisted  of  a  plate  of  soup,  and  a  very 
small  portion  of  something  else.  There  are  Na- 
tional Kitchens  in  different  parts  of  the  town  sup- 
plying similar  meals.  Glasses  of  weak  tea  were 
sold  at  30  kopecks  each,  without  sugar.  My  sister 
had  sent  me  a  small  bottle  of  saccharine  just  be- 
fore I  left  Stockholm,  and  it  was  pathetic  to  see 
the  childish  delight  with  which  some  of  my  friends 
drank  glasses  of  sweetened  tea. 

From  the  Metropole  I  went  to  the  Red  Fleet  to 
get  my  room  fixed  up.  Six  months  ago  there  were 
comparatively  clean  rooms  here,  but  the  sailors 
have  demoralized  the  hotel  and  its  filth  is  inde- 
scribable. There  was  no  heating  and  very  little 
light.  A  samovar  left  after  the  departure  of  the 
last  visitor  was  standing  on  the  table,  together 
with  some  dirty  curl-papers  and  other  rubbish. 
I  got  the  waiter  to  clean  up  more  or  less,  and  or- 
dered a  new  samovar.  He  could  not  supply 
spoon,  knife,  or  fork,  and  only  with  great  diffi- 
culty was  persuaded  to  lend  me  glasses. 

The  telephone,  however,  was  working,  and  after 
30 


tea  I  got  into  touch  with  Madame  Radek,  who  had 
moved  from  the  Metropole  into  the  Kremlin.  I 
had  not  yet  got  a  pass  to  the  Kremlin,  so  she 
arranged  to  meet  me  and  get  a  pass  for  me  from 
the  Commandant.  I  walked  through  the  snow 
to  the  white  gate  at  the  end  of  the  bridge  which 
leads  over  the  garden  up  a  steep  incline  to  the 
Kremlin.  Here  a  fire  of  logs  was  burning,  and 
three  soldiers  were  sitting  around  it.  Madame 
Radek  was  waiting  for  me,  warming  her  hands  at 
the  fire,  and  we  went  together  into  the  citadel  of 
the  republic. 

A  meeting  of  the  People's  Commissars  was  go- 
ing on  in  the  Kremlin,  and  on  an  open  space  under 
the  ancient  churches  were  a  number  of  motors 
black  on  the  snow.  We  turned  to  the  right  down 
the  Dvortzovaya  street,  between  the  old  Cavalier 
House  and  the  Potyeshny  Palace,  and  went  in 
through  a  door  under  the  archway  that  crosses  the 
road,  and  up  some  dark  flights  of  stairs  to  a  part 
of  the  building  that  used,  I  think,  to  be  called  the 
Pleasure  Palace.  Here,  in  a  wonderful  old  room, 
hung  with  Gobelins  tapestries  absolutely  undam- 
aged by  the  revolution,  and  furnished  with  carved 

31 


chairs,  we  found  the  most  incongruous  figure  of 
the  old  Swiss  internationalist,  Karl  Moor,  who 
talked  with  affection  of  Keir  Hardie  and  of  Hynd- 
man,  "in  the  days  when  he  was  a  socialist,"  and 
was  disappointed  to  find  that  I  knew  so  little  about 
them.  Madame  Radek  asked,  of  course,  for  the 
latest  news  of  Radek,  and  I  told  her  that  I  had 
read  in  the  Stockholm  papers  that  he  had  gone 
to  Brunswick,  and  was  said  to  be  living  in  the 
palace  there.1  She  feared  he  might  have  been  in 
Bremen  when  that  town  was  taken  by  the  Gov- 
ernment troops,  and  did  not  believe  he  would 
ever  get  back  to  Russia.  She  asked  me,  did  I 
not  feel  already  (as  indeed  I  did)  the  enormous 
difference  which  the  last  six  months  had  made  in 
strengthening  the  revolution.  I  asked  after  old 
acquaintances,  and  learnt  that  Pyatakov,  who, 
when  I  Last  saw  him,  was  praying  that  the  Allies 
should  give  him  machine  rifles  to  use  against  the 
Germans  in  the  Ukraine,  had  been  the  first  Presi- 
dent of  the  Ukrainian  Soviet  Republic,  but  had 
since  been  replaced  by  Rakovsky.  It  had  been 

1  It  was  not  till  later  that  we  learned  he  had  returned  to 
Berlin,  been  arrested,  and  put  in  prison. 

32 


found  that  the  views  of  the  Pyatakov  government 
were  further  left  than  those  of  its  supporters,  and 
so  Pyatakov  had  given  way  to  Rakovsky  who  was 
better  able  to  conduct  a  more  moderate  policy. 
The  Republic  had  been  proclaimed  in  Kharkov, 
but  at  that  time  Kiev  was  still  in  the  hands  of  the 
Directorate. 

That  night  my  room  in  the  Red  Fleet  was  so 
cold  that  I  went  to  bed  in  a  sheepskin  coat  under 
rugs  and  all  possible  bedclothes  with  a  mattress 
on  the  top.  Even  so  I  slept  very  badly. 

The  next  day  I  spent  in  vain  wrestlings  to  get 
a  better  room.  Walking  about  the  town  I  found 
it  dotted  with  revolutionary  sculptures,  some  very 
bad,  others  interesting,  all  done  in  some  haste  and 
set  up  for  the  celebrations  of  the  anniversary  of 
the  revolution  last  November.  The  painters  also 
had  been  turned  loose  to  do  what  they  could  with 
the  hoardings,  and  though  the  weather  had  dam- 
aged many  of  their  pictures,  enough  was  left  to 
show  what  an  extraordinary  carnival  that  had 
been.  Where  a  hoarding  ran  along  the  front  of 
a  house  being  repaired  the  painters  had  used  the 
whole  of  it  as  a  vast  canvas  on  which  they  had 

33 


painted  huge  symbolic  pictures  of  the  revolution. 
A  whole  block  in  the  Tverskaya  was  so  decorated. 
Best,  I  think,  were  the  row  of  wooden  booths  al- 
most opposite  the  Hotel  National  in  the  Okhotnia 
Ryadi.  These  had  been  painted  by  the  futurists 
or  kindred  artists,  and  made  a  really  delightful 
effect,  their  bright  colours  and  naif  patterns  seem- 
ing so  natural  to  Moscow  that  I  found  myself 
wondering  how  it  was  that  they  had  never  been 
so  painted  before.  They  used  to  be  a  uniform 
dull  yellow.  Now,  in  clear  primary  colours,  blue, 
red,  yellow,  with  rough  flower  designs,  on  white 
and  chequered  back-grounds,  with  the  masses  of 
snow  in  the  road  before  them,  and  bright-ker- 
chiefed women  and  peasants  in  ruddy  sheepskin 
coats  passing  by,  they  seemed  less  like  futurist 
paintings  than  like  some  traditional  survival,  link- 
ing new  Moscow  with  the  Middle  Ages.  It  is 
perhaps  interesting  to  note  that  certain  staid 
purists  in  the  Moscow  Soviet  raised  a  protest 
while  I  was  there  against  the  license  given  to  the 
futurists  to  spread  themselves  about  the  town, 
and  demanded  that  the  art  of  the  revolution  should 
be  more  comprehensible  and  less  violent.  These 

34 


criticisms,  however,  did  not  apply  to  the  row  of 
booths  which  were  a  pleasure  to  me  every  time 
I  passed  them. 

In  the  evening  I  went  to  see  Remstein  in  the 
National.  Reinstein  is  a  little  old  grandfather, 
a  member  of  the  American  Socialist  Labour  Party, 
who  was  tireless  in  helping  the  Americans  last 
year,  and  is  a  prodigy  of  knowledge  about  the  rev- 
olution. He  must  be  nearly  seventy,  never  misses 
a  meeting  of  the  Moscow  Soviet  or  the  Executive 
Committee,  gets  up  at  seven  in  the  morning,  and 
goes  from  one  end  of  Moscow  to  the  other  to  lec- 
ture to  the  young  men  in  training  as  officers  for 
the  Soviet  Army,  more  or  less  controls  the  English 
soldier  war  prisoners,  about  whose  Bolshevism  he 
is  extremely  pessimistic,  and  enjoys  an  official  po- 
sition as  head  of  the  quite  futile  department  which 
prints  hundred-weight  upon  hundred-weight  of 
propaganda  in  English,  none  of  which  by  any 
chance  ever  reaches  these  shores.  He  was  terribly 
disappointed  that  I  had  brought  no  American 
papers  with  me.  He  complained  of  the  lack  of 
transport,  a  complaint  which  I  think  I  must  have 
heard  at  least  three  times  a  day  from  different 

35 


people  the  whole  time  I  was  in  Moscow.  Po- 
litically, he  thought,  the  position  could  not  be 
better,  though  economically  it  was  very  bad. 
When  they  had  corn,  as  it  were,  in  sight,  they 
could  not  get  it  to  the  towns  for  lack  of  locomo- 
tives. These  economic  difficulties  were  bound  to 
react  sooner  or  later  on  the  political  position. 

He  talked  about  the  English  prisoners.  The 
men  are  brought  to  Moscow,  where  they  are  given 
special  passports  and  are  allowed  to  go  anywhere 
they  like  about  the  town  without  convoy  of  any 
kind.  I  asked  about  the  officers,  and  he  said  that 
they  were  in  prison  but  given  everything  possible, 
a  member  of  the  International  Red  Cross,  who 
worked  with  the  Americans  when  they  were  here, 
visiting  them  regularly  and  taking  in  parcels  for 
them.  He  told  me  that  on  hearing  in  Moscow 
that  some  sort  of  fraternization  was  going  on  on 
the  Archangel  front,  he  had  hurried  off  there  with 
two  prisoners,  one  English  and  one  American. 
With  some  difficulty  a  meeting  was  arranged. 
Two  officers  and  a  sergeant  from  the  Allied  side 
and  Reinstein  and  these  two  prisoners  from  the 
Russian,  met  on  a  bridge  midway  between  the  op- 

36 


posing  lines.  The  conversation  seemed  to  have 
been  mostly  an  argument  about  working-class  con- 
ditions in  America,  together  with  reasons  why  the 
Allies  should  go  home  and  leave  Russia  alone. 
Finally  the  Allied  representatives  (I  fancy  Amer- 
icans) asked  Reins tein  to  come  with  them  to  Arch- 
angel and  state  his  case,  promising  him  safe  con- 
duct there  and  back.  By  this  time  two  Russians 
had  joined  the  group,  and  one  of  them  offered  his 
back  as  a  desk,  on  which  a  safe-conduct  for  Rein- 
stein  was  written.  Reinstein,  who  showed  me  the 
safe-conduct,  doubted  its  validity,  and  said  that 
anyhow  he  could  not  have  used  it  without  instruc- 
tions from  Moscow.  When  it  grew  dusk  they 
prepared  to  separate.  The  officers  said  to  the 
prisoners,  "What4?  Aren't  you  coming  back  with 
us1?"  The  two  shook  their  heads  decidedly,  and 
said,  "No,  thank  you." 

I  learnt  that  some  one  was  leaving  the  National 
next  day  to  go  to  Kharkov,  so  that  I  should  prob- 
ably be  able  to  get  a  room.  After  drinking  tea 
with  Reinstein  till  pretty  late,  I  went  home,  bur- 
rowed into  a  mountain  of  all  sorts  of  clothes,  and 
slept  a  little. 

37 


In  the  morning  I  succeeded  in  making  out  my 
claim  to  the  room  at  the  National,  which  turned 
out  to  be  a  very  pleasant  one,  next  door  to  the 
kitchen  and  therefore  quite  decently  warm.  I 
wasted  a  lot  of  time  getting  my  stuff  across. 
Transport  from  one  hotel  to  the  other,  though  the 
distance  is  not  a  hundred  yards,  cost  forty  roubles. 
I  got  things  straightened  out,  bought  some  books, 
and  prepared  a  list  of  the  material  needed  and 
the  people  I  wanted  to  see. 

The  room  was  perfectly  clean.  The  chamber- 
maid who  came  in  to  tidy  up  quite  evidently  took 
a  pride  in  doing  her  work  properly,  and  protested 
against  my  throwing  matches  on  the  floor.  She 
said  she  had  been  in  the  hotel  since  it  was  opened. 
I  asked  her  how  she  liked  the  new  regime.  She 
replied  that  there  was  not  enough  to  eat,  but  that 
she  felt  freer. 

In  the  afternoon  I  went  downstairs  to  the  main 
kitchens  of  the  hotel,  where  there  is  a  permanent 
supply  of  hot  water.  One  enormous  kitchen  is 
set  apart  for  the  use  of  people  living  in  the  hotel. 
Here  I  found  a  crowd  of  people,  all  using  different 
parts  of  the  huge  stove.  There  was  an  old  grey- 

38 


haired  Cossack,  with  a  scarlet  tunic  under  his 
black,  wide-skirted,  narrow-waisted  coat,  decorated 
in  the  Cossack  fashion  with  ornamental  cartridges. 
He  was  warming  his  soup,  side  by  side  with  a  little 
Jewess  making  potato-cakes.  A  spectacled  elderly 
member  of  the  Executive  Committee  was  busy 
doing  something  with  a  little  bit  of  meat.  Two 
little  girls  were  boiling  potatoes  in  old  tin  cans. 
In  another  room  set  apart  for  washing  a  sturdy 
little  long-haired  revolutionary  was  cleaning  a 
shirt.  A  woman  with  her  hair  done  up  in  a  blue 
handkerchief  was  very  carefully  ironing  a  blouse. 
Another  was  busy  stewing  sheets,  or  something  of 
that  kind,  in  a  big  cauldron.  And  all  the  time 
people  from  all  parts  of  the  hotel  were  coming 
with  their  pitchers  and  pans,  from  fine  copper  ket- 
tles to  disreputable  empty  meat  tins,  to  fetch  hot 
water  for  tea.  At  the  other  side  of  the  corridor 
was  a  sort  of  counter  in  front  of  a  long  window 
opening  into  yet  another  kitchen.  Here  there  was 
a  row  of  people  waiting  with  their  own  saucepans 
and  plates,  getting  their  dinner  allowances  of  soup 
and  meat  in  exchange  for  tickets.  I  was  told  that 
people  thought  they  got  slightly  more  if  they  took 

39 


their  food  in  this  way  straight  from  the  kitchen 
to  their  own  rooms  instead  of  being  served  in  the 
restaurant.  But  I  watched  closely,  and  decided 
it  was  only  superstition.  Besides,  I  had  not  got 
a  saucepan. 

On  paying  for  my  room  at  the  beginning  of  the 
week  I  was  given  a  card  with  the  days  of  the  week 
printed  along  its  edge.  This  card  gave  me  the 
right  to  buy  one  dinner  daily,  and  when  I  bought 
it  that  day  of  the  week  was  snipped  off  the  card 
so  that  I  could  not  buy  another.  The  meal  con- 
sisted of  a  plate  of  very  good  soup,  together  with 
a  second  course  of  a  scrap  of  meat  or  fish.  The 
price  of  the  meal  varied  between  five  and  seven 
roubles. 

One  could  obtain  this  meal  any  time  between 
two  and  seven.  Living  hungrily  through  the 
morning,  at  two  o'clock  I  used  to  experience  defi- 
nite relief  in  the  knowledge  that  now  at  any  mo- 
ment I  could  have  my  meal.  Feeling  in  this  way 
less  hungry,  I  used  then  to  postpone  it  hour  by 
hour,  and  actually  dined  about  five  or  six  o'clock. 
Thinking  that  I  might  indeed  have  been  specially 
favoured  I  made  investigations,  and  found  that 

40 


the  dinners  supplied  at  the  public  feeding  houses 
(the  equivalent  of  our  national  kitchens)  were  of 
precisely  the  same  size  and  character,  any  differ- 
ence between  the  meals  depending  not  on  the  food 
but  on  the  cook. 

A  kind  of  rough  and  ready  co-operative  system 
also  obtained.  One  day  there  was  a  notice  on  the 
stairs  that  those  who  wanted  could  get  one  pot  of 
jam  apiece  by  applying  to  the  provisioning  com- 
mittee of  the  hotel.  I  got  a  pot  of  jam  in  this 
way,  and  on  a  later  occasion  a  small  quantity  of 
Ukrainian  sausage. 

Besides  the  food  obtainable  on  cards  it  was  pos- 
sible to  buy,  at  ruinous  prices,  food  from  specu- 
lators, and  an  idea  of  the  difference  in  the  prices 
may  be  obtained  from  the  following  examples: 
Bread  is  one  rouble  20  kopecks  per  pound  by  card 
and  15  to  20  roubles  per  pound  from  the  specula- 
tors. Sugar  is  12  roubles  per  pound  by  card,  and 
never  less  than  50  roubles  per  pound  in  the  open 
market.  It  is  obvious  that  abolition  of  the  card 
system  would  mean  that  the  rich  would  have 
enough  and  the  poor  nothing.  Various  methods 
have  been  tried  in  the  effort  to  get  rid  of  specu- 

41 


lators,  whose  high  profits  naturally  decrease  the 
willingness  of  the  villages  to  sell  bread  at  less 
abnormal  rates.  But  as  a  Communist  said  to  me, 
"There  is  only  one  way  to  get  rid  of  speculation, 
and  that  is  to  supply  enough  on  the  card  system. 
When  people  can  buy  all  they  want  at  1  rouble  20 
they  are  not  going  to  pay  an  extra  14  roubles  for 
the  encouragement  of  speculators."  "And  when 
will  you  be  able  to  do  that*?"  I  asked.  "As  soon 
as  the  war  ends,  and  we  can  use  our  transport  for 
peaceful  purposes." 

There  can  be  no  question  about  the  starvation  of 
Moscow.  On  the  third  day  after  my  arrival  in 
Moscow  I  saw  a  man  driving  a  sledge  laden  with, 
I  think,  horseflesh,  mostly  bones,  probably  dead 
sledge  horses.  As  he  drove  a  black  crowd  of  crows 
followed  the  sledge  and  perched  on  it,  tearing 
greedily  at  the  meat.  He  beat  at  them  contin- 
ually with  his  whip,  but  they  were  so  famished 
that  they  took  no  notice  whatever.  The  starving 
crows  used  even  to  force  their  way  through  the 
small  ventilators  of  the  windows  in  my  hotel  to 
pick  up  any  scraps  they  could  find  inside.  The 
pigeons,  which  formerly  crowded  the  streets,  ut- 

42 


terly  undismayed  by  the  traffic,  confident  in  the 
security  given  by  their  supposed  connection  with 
religion,  have  completely  disappeared. 

Nor  can  there  be  any  question  about  the  cold. 
I  resented  my  own  sufferings  less  when  I  found 
that  the  State  Departments  were  no  better  off  than 
other  folk.  Even  in  the  Kremlin  I  found  the 
Keeper  of  the  Archives  sitting  at  work  in  an  old 
sheepskin  coat  and  felt  boots,  rising  now  and  then 
to  beat  vitality  into  his  freezing  hands  like  a  Lon- 
don cabman  of  old  times. 


43 


THE  EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE  ON  THE 
REPLY  TO  THE  PRINKIPO  PRO- 
POSAL 

February  loth. 

IT  will  be  remembered  that  a  proposal  was  made 
by  the  Peace  Conference  that  the  various  de  facto 
governments  of  Russia  should  meet  on  an  island 
in  the  Bosphorus  to  discuss  matters,  an  armistice 
being  arranged  meanwhile.  No  direct  invitation 
was  sent  to  the  Soviet  Government.  After  at- 
tempting to  obtain  particulars  t-hrough  the  editor 
of  a  French  socialist  paper,  Chicherin  on  February 
4th  sent  a  long  note  to  the  Allies.  The  note  was 
not  at  first  considered  with  great  favour  in  Rus- 
sia, although  it  was  approved  by  the  opposition 
parties  on  the  right,  the  Mensheviks  even  going 
so  far  as  to  say  that  in  sending  such  a  note,  the 
Bolsheviks  were  acting  in  the  interest  of  the  whole 
of  the  Russian  people.  The  opposition  on  the 

44 


left  complained  that  it  was  a  betrayal  of  the  revo- 
lution into  the  hands  of  the  Entente,  and  there 
were  many  Bolsheviks  who  said  openly  that  they 
thought  it  went  a  little  too  far  in  the  way  of  con- 
cession. On  February  loth,  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee met  to  consider  the  international  position. 
Before  proceeding  to  an  account  of  that  meet- 
ing, it  will  be  well  to  make  a  short  summary  of  the 
note  in  question.  Chicherin,  after  referring  to 
the  fact  that  no  invitation  had  been  addressed  to 
them  and  that  the  absence  of  a  reply  from  them 
was  being  treated  as  the  rejection  of  a  proposal 
they  had  never  received,  said  that  in  spite  of  its 
more  and  more  favourable  position,  the  Russian 
Soviet  Government  considered  a  cessation  of  hos- 
tilities so  desirable  that  it  was  ready  immediately 
to  begin  negotiations,  and,  as  it  had  more  than 
once  declared,  to  secure  agreement  "even  at  the 
cost  of  serious  concessions  in  so  far  as  these  should 
not  threaten  the  development  of  the  Republic." 
"Taking  into  consideration  that  the  enemies 
against  whom  it  has  to  struggle  borrow  their 
strength  of  resistance  exclusively  from  the  help 
shown  them  by  the  powers  of  the  Entente,  and 

45 


that  therefore  these  powers  are  the  only  actual 
enemy  of  the  Russian  Soviet  Government,  the 
latter  addresses  itself  precisely  to  the  powers  of 
the  Entente,  setting  out  the  points  on  which  it  con- 
siders such  concessions  possible  with  a  view  to 
the  ending  of  every  kind  of  conflict  with  the  afore- 
said powers."  There  follows  a  list  of  the  conces- 
sions they  are  prepared  to  make.  The  first  of 
these  is  recognition  of  their  debts,  the  interest  on 
which,  "in  view  of  Russia's  difficult  financial  po- 
sition and  her  unsatisfactory  credit,"  they  propose 
to  guarantee  in  raw  materials.  Then,  "in  view 
of  the  interest  continually  expressed  by  foreign 
capital  in  the  question  of  the  exploitation  for  its 
advantage  of  the  natural  resources  of  Russia,  the 
Soviet  Government  is  ready  to  give  to  subjects  of 
the  powers  of  the  Entente  mineral,  timber  and 
other  concessions,  to  be  defined  in  detail,  on  con- 
dition that  the  economic  and  social  structure  of 
Soviet  Russia  shall  not  be  touched  by  the  internal 
arrangements  of  these  concessions."  The  last 
point  is  that  Which  roused  most  opposition.  It 
expresses  a  willingness  to  negotiate  even  concern- 
ing such  annexations,  hidden  or  open,  as  the  Allies 

46 


may  have  in  mind.  The  words  used  are  "The 
Russian  Soviet  Government  has  not  the  intention 
of  excluding  at  all  costs  consideration  of  the  ques- 
tion of  annexations,  etc.  .  .  ."  Then,  "by  an- 
nexations must  be  understood  the  retention  on  this 
or  that  part  of  the  territory  of  what  was  the  Rus- 
sian Empire,  not  including  Poland  and  Finland, 
of  armed  forces  of  the  Entente  or  of  such  forces 
as  are  maintained  by  the  governments  of  the  En- 
tente or  enjoy  their  financial,  military,  technical 
or  other  support."  There  follows  a  statement 
that  the  extent  of  the  concessions  will  depend  on 
the  military  position.  Chicherin  proceeds  to  give 
a  rather  optimistic  account  of  the  external  and 
internal  situation.  Finally  he  touches  on  the 
question  of  propaganda.  "The  Russian  Soviet 
Government,  while  pointing  out  that  it  cannot 
limit  the  freedom  of  the  revolutionary  press,  de- 
clares its  readiness,  in  case  of  necessity,  to  include 
in  the  general  agreement  with  the  powers  of  the 
Entente  the  obligation  not  to  interfere  in  their 
internal  affairs."  The  note  ends  thus :  "On  the 
foregoing  bases  the  Russian  Soviet  Government 
is  ready  immediately  to  begin  negotiations  either 

47 


on  Prinkipo  island  or  in  any  other  place  whatso- 
ever with  all  the  powers  of  the  Entente  together 
or  with  separate  powers  of  their  number,  or  with 
any  Russian  political  groupings  whatsoever,  ac- 
cording to  the  wishes  of  the  powers  of  the  Entente. 
The  Russian  Soviet  Government  begs  the  powers 
of  the  Entente  immediately  to  inform  it  whither 
to  send  its  representatives,  and  precisely  when  and 
by  what  route."  This  note  was  dated  February 
4th,  and  was  sent  out  by  wireless. 

From  the  moment  when  the  note  appeared  in 
the  newspapers  of  February  5th,  it  had  been  the 
main  subject  of  conversation.  Every  point  in  it 
was  criticized  and  counter-criticized,  but  even  its 
critics,  though  anxious  to  preserve  their  criticism 
as  a  basis  for  political  action  afterwards,  were  des- 
perately anxious  that  it  should  meet  with  a  reply. 
No  one  in  Moscow  at  that  time  could  have  the 
slightest  misgiving  about  the  warlike  tendencies 
of  the  revolution.  The  overwhelming  mass  of  the 
people  and  of  the  revolutionary  leaders  want 
peace,  and  only  continued  warfare  forced  upon 
them  could  turn  their  desire  for  peace  into  des- 
perate, resentful  aggression.  Everywhere  I  heard 


the  same  story:  "We  cannot  get  things  straight 
while  we  have  to  fight  all  the  time."  They  would 
not  admit  it,  I  am  sure,  but  few  of  the  Soviet 
leaders  who  have  now  for  eighteen  months  been 
wrestling  with  the  difficulties  of  European  Russia 
have  not  acquired,  as  it  were  in  spite  of  them- 
selves, a  national,  domestic  point  of  view.  They 
are  thinking  less  about  world  revolution  than 
about  getting  bread  to  Moscow,  or  increasing  the 
output  of  textiles,  or  building  river  power-stations 
to  free  the  northern  industrial  district  from  its 
dependence  on  the  distant  coal-fields.  I  was  con- 
sequently anxious  to  hear  what  the  Executive 
Committee  would  have  to  say,  knowing  that  there 
I  should  listen  to  some  expression  of  the  theoret- 
ical standpoint  from  which  my  hard-working 
friends  had  been  drawn  away  by  interests  nearer 
home. 

The  Executive  Committee  met  as  usual  in  the 
big  hall  of  the  Hotel  Metropole,  and  it  met  as 
usual  very  late.  The  sitting  was  to  begin  at 
seven,  and,  foolishly  thinking  that  Russians  might 
have  changed  their  nature  in  the  last  six  months, 
I  was  punctual  and  found  the  hall  nearly  empty, 

49 


because  a  party  meeting  of  the  Communists  in  the 
room  next  door  was  not  finished.  The  hall  looked 
just  as  it  used  to  look,  with  a  red  banner  over  the 
presidium  and  another  at  the  opposite  end,  both, 
inscribed  "The  All  Russian  Executive  Commit- 
tee," "Proletariat  of  all  lands,  unite,"  and  so  on. 
As  the  room  gradually  filled,  I  met  many  acquaint- 
ances. 

Old  Professor  Pokrovsky  came  in,  blinking 
through  his  spectacles,  bent  a  little,  in  a  very  old 
coat,  with  a  small  black  fur  hat,  his  hands  clasped 
together,  just  as,  so  I  have  been  told,  he  walked 
unhappily  to  and  fro  in  the  fortress  at  Brest  dur- 
ing the  second  period  of  the  negotiations.  I  did 
not  think  he  would  recognize  me,  but  he  came  up 
at  once,  and  reminded  me  of  the  packing  of  the 
archives  at  the  time  when  it  seemed  likely  that 
the  Germans  would  take  Petrograd.  He  told  me 
of  a  mass  of  material  they  are  publishing  about 
the  origin  of  the  war.  He  said  that  England 
came  out  of  it  best  of  anybody,  but  that  France 
and  Russia  showed  in  a  very  bad  light. 

Just  then,  Demian  Biedny  rolled  in,  fatter  than 
he  used  to  be  (admirers  from  the  country  send  him 

50 


food)  with  a  round  face,  shrewd  laughing  eyes, 
and  cynical  mouth,  a  typical  peasant,  and  the  poet 
of  the  revolution.  He  was  passably  shaved,  his 
little  yellow  moustache  was  trimmed,  he  was  wear- 
ing new  leather  breeches,  and  seemed  altogether  a 
more  prosperous  poet  than  the  untidy  ruffian  I 
-first  met  about  a  year  or  more  ago  before  his 
satirical  poems  in  Pravda  and  other  revolution- 
ary papers  had  reached  the  heights  of  popularity 
to  which  they  have  since  attained.  In  the  old  days 
before  the  revolution  in  Petrograd  he  used  to  send 
his  poems  to  the  revolutionary  papers.  A  few 
were  published  and  scandalized  the  more  austere 
and  serious-minded  revolutionaries,  who  held  a 
meeting  to  decide  whether  any  more  were  to  be 
printed.  Since  the  revolution,  he  has  rapidly 
come  into  his  own,  and  is  now  a  sort  of  licensed 
jester,  flagellating  Communists  and  non-Com- 
munists alike.  Even  in  this  assembly  he  had 
about  him  a  little  of  the  manner  of  Robert  Burns 
in  Edinburgh  society.  He  told  me  with  expan- 
sive glee  that  they  had  printed  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  of  his  last  book,  that  the  whole 
edition  was  sold  in  two  weeks,  and  that  he  had  had 

51 


his  portrait  painted  by  a  real  artist.  It  is  actually 
true  that  of  his  eighteen  different  works,  only  two 
are  obtainable  to-day. 

Madame  Radek,  who  last  year  showed  a  genius 
for  the  making  of  sandwiches  with  chopped  leeks, 
and  did  good  work  for  Russia  as  head  of  the  Com- 
mittee for  dealing  with  Russian  war  prisoners, 
came  and  sat  down  beside  me,  and  complained 
bitterly  that  the  authorities  wanted  to  turn  her 
out  of  the  grand  ducal  apartments  in  the  Kremlin 
and  make  them  into  a  historical  museum  to  illus- 
trate the  manner  of  life  of  the  Romanovs.  She 
said  she  was  sure  that  was  simply  an  excuse  and 
that  the  real  reason  was  that  Madame  Trotsky  did 
not  like  her  having  a  better  furnished  room  than 
her  own.  It  seems  that  the  Trotskys,  when  they 
moved  into  the  Kremlin,  chose  a  lodging  ex- 
tremely modest  in  comparison  with  the  gorgeous 
place  where  I  had  found  Madame  Radek. 

All  this  time  the  room  was  filling,  as  the  party 
meeting  ended  and  the  members  of  the  Executive 
Committee  came  in  to  take  their  places.  I  was 
asking  Litvinov  whether  he  was  going  to  speak, 
when  a  little  hairy  energetic  man  came  up  and 

52 


with  great  delight  showed  us  the  new  matches  in- 
vented in  the  Soviet  laboratories.  Russia  is  short 
of  match-wood,  and  without  paraffin.  Besides 
which  I  think  I  am  right  in  saying  that  the  bulk 
of  the  matches  used  in  the  north  came  from  fac- 
tories in  Finland.  In  these  new  Bolshevik 
matches  neither  wood  nor  paraffin  is  used.  Waste 
paper  is  a  substitute  for  one,  and  the  grease  that 
is  left  after  cleaning  wool  is  a  substitute  for  the 
other.  The  little  man,  Berg,  secretary  of  the 
Presidium  of  the  Council  of  Public  Economy, 
gave  me  a  packet  of  his  matches.  They  are  like 
the  matches  in  a  folding  cover  that  used  to  be  com- 
mon in  Paris.  You  break  off  a  match  before 
striking  it.  They  strike  and  burn  better  than  any 
matches  I  have  ever  bought  in  Russia,  and  I  do 
not  see  why  they  should  not  be  made  in  England, 
where  we  have  to  import  all  the  materials  of 
which  ordinary  matches  are  made.  I  told  Berg 
I  should  try  to  patent  them  and  so  turn  myself 
into  a  capitalist.  Another  Communist,  who  was 
listening,  laughed,  and  said  that  most  fortunes 
were  founded  in  just  such  a  fraudulent  way. 
Then  there  was  Steklov  of  the  Izvestia^  Ma- 

53 


dame  Kollontai,  and  a  lot  of  other  people  whose 
names  I  do  not  remember.  Little  Bucharin,  the 
editor  of  Pravda  and  one  of  the  most  interesting 
talkers  in  Moscow,  who  is  ready  to  discuss  any 
philosophy  you  like,  from  Berkeley  and  Locke 
down  to  Bergson  and  William  James,  trotted  up 
and  shook  hands.  Suddenly  a  most  unexpected 
figure  limped  through  the  door.  This  was  the 
lame  Eliava  of  the  Vologda  Soviet,  who  came  up 
in  great  surprise  at  seeing  me  again,  and  reminded 
me  how  Radek  and  I,  hungry  from  Moscow,  aston- 
ished the  hotel  of  the  Golden  Anchor  by  eating 
fifteen  eggs  apiece,  when  we  came  to  Vologda  last 
summer  (I  acted  as  translator  during  Radek's  con- 
versations with  the  American  Ambassador  and  Mr. 
Lindley).  Eliava  is  a  fine,  honest  fellow,  and 
had  a  very  difficult  time  in  Vologda  where  the 
large  colony  of  foreign  embassies  and  missions  nat- 
urally became  the  centre  of  disaffection  in  a  dis- 
trict which  at  the  time  was  full  of  inflammable 
material.  I  remember  when  we  parted  from  him, 
Radek  said  to  me  that  he  hardly  thought  he  would 
see  him  alive  again.  He  told  me  he  had  left  Vo- 
logda some  three  months  ago  and  was  now  going 

54 


to  Turkestan.  He  did  not  disguise  the  resentment 
he  felt  towards  M.  Noulens  (the  French  Ambas- 
sador) who,  he  thought,  had  stood  in  the  way  of 
agreement  last  year,  but  said  that  he  had  nothing 
whatever  to  say  against  Lindley. 

At  last  there  was  a  little  stir  in  the  raised  presi- 
dium, and  the  meeting  began.  When  I  saw  the 
lean,  long-haired  Avanesov  take  his  place  as  secre- 
tary, and  Sverdlov,  the  president,  lean  forward  a 
little,  ring  his  bell,  and  announce  that  the  meeting 
was  open  and  that  "Comrade  Chicherin  has  the 
word,"  I  could  hardly  believe  that  I  had  been  away 
six  months. 

Chicherin's  speech  took  the  form  of  a  general 
report  on  the  international  situation.  He  spoke  a 
little  more  clearly  than  he  was  used  to  do,  but  even 
so  I  had  to  walk  round  to  a  place  close  under  the 
tribune  before  I  could  hear  him.  He  sketched  the 
history  of  the  various  steps  the  Soviet  Government 
has  taken  in  trying  to  secure  peace,  even  including 
such  minor  "peace  offensives"  as  Litvinov's  per- 
sonal telegram  to  President  Wilson.  He  then 
weighed,  in  no  very  hopeful  spirit,  the  possibilities 
of  this  last  Note  to  all  the  Allies  having  any  seri- 

55 


ous  result.  He  estimated  the  opposing  tendencies 
for  and  against  war  with  Russia  in  each  of  the 
principal  countries  concerned.  The  growth  of 
revolutionary  feeling  abroad  made  imperialistic 
governments  even  more  aggressive  towards  the 
Workers'  and  Peasants'  Republic  than  they  would 
otherwise  be.  It  was  now  making  their  interven- 
tion difficult,  but  no  more.  It  was  impossible  to 
say  that  the  collapse  of  Imperialism  had  gone  so 
far  that  it  had  lost  its  teeth.  Chicherin  speaks  as 
if  he  were  a  dead  man  or  a  ventriloquist's  lay  fig- 
ure. And  indeed  he  is  half-dead.  He  has  never 
learnt  the  art  of  releasing  himself  from  drudgery 
by  handing  it  over  to  his  subordinates.  He  is  per- 
manently tired  out.  You  feel  it  is  almost  cruel  to 
say  "Good  morning"  to  him  when  you  meet  him, 
because  of  the  appeal  to  be  left  alone  that  comes 
unconsciously  into  his  eyes.  Partly  in  order  to 
avoid  people,  partly  because  he  is  himself  accus- 
tomed to  work  at  night,  his  section  of  the  foreign 
office  keeps  extraordinary  hours,  is  not  to  be  found 
till  about  five  in  the  afternoon  and  works  till  four 
in  the  morning.  The  actual  material  of  his  report 
was  interesting,  but  there  was  nothing  in  its  man- 

56 


ner  to  rouse  enthusiasm  of  any  kind.  The  audi- 
ence listened  with  attention,  but  only  woke  into 
real  animation  when  with  a  shout  of  laughter  it 
heard  an  address  sent  to  Clemenceau  by  the  emigre 
financiers,  aristocrats  and  bankrupt  politicians  of 
the  Russian  colony  in  Stockholm,  protesting 
against  any  sort  of  agreement- with  the  Bolsheviks. 
Bucharin  followed  Chicherin.  A  little  eager 
figure  in  his  neat  brown  clothes  (bought,  I  think, 
while  visiting  Berlin  as  a  member  of  the  Economic 
Commission),  he  at  least  makes  himself  clearly 
heard,  though  his  voice  has  a  funny  tendency  to 
breaking.  He  compared  the  present  situation  with 
the  situation  before  Brest.  He  had  himself  (as  I 
well  remember)  been  with  Radek,  one  of  the  most 
violent  opponents  of  the  Brest  peace,  and  he  now 
admitted  that  at  that  time  Lenin  had  been  right 
and  he  wrong.  The  position  was  now  different, 
because  whereas  then  imperialism  was  split  into 
two  camps  fighting  each  other,  it  now  showed  signs 
of  uniting  its  forces.  He  regarded  the  League  of 
Nations  as  a  sort  of  capitalist  syndicate,  and  said 
that  the  difference  in  the  French  and  American 
attitude  towards  the  League  depended  upon  the 

57 


position  of  French  and  American  capital.  Capital 
in  France  was  so  weak,  that  she  could  at  best  be 
only  a  small  shareholder.  Capital  in  America  was 
in  a  very  advantageous  position.  America  there- 
fore wanted  a  huge  All-European  syndicate  in 
which  each  state  would  have  a  certain  number  of 
shares.  America,  having  the  greatest  number  of 
shares,  would  be  able  to  exploit  all  the  other  na- 
tions. This  is  a  fixed  idea  of  Bucharin's,  and  he 
has  lost  no  opportunity  of  putting  out  this  theory 
of  the  League  of  Nations  since  the  middle  of  last 
summer.  As  for  Chicherin's  Note,  he  said  it  had 
at  least  great  historical  interest  on  account  of  the 
language  it  used,  which  was  very  different  from 
the  hypocritical  language  of  ordinary  diplomacy. 
Here  were  no  phrases  about  noble  motives,  but  a 
plain  recognition  of  the  facts  of  the  case.  "Tell 
us  what  you  want,"  it  says,  "and  we  are  ready  to 
buy  you  off,  in  order  to  avoid  armed  conflict." 
Even  if  the  Allies  gave  no  answer  the  Note  would 
still  have  served  a  useful  purpose  and  would  be  a 
landmark  in  history. 

Litvinov  followed  Bucharin.     A  solid,  jolly, 
round  man,  with  his  peaked  grey  fur  hat  on  his 

58 


head,  rounder  than  ever  in  fur-collared,  thick  coat, 
his  eye-glasses  slipping  from  his  nose  as  he  got  up, 
his  grey  muffler  hanging  from  his  neck,  he  hurried 
to  the  tribune.  Taking  off  his  things  and  leaving 
them  on  a  chair  below,  he  stepped  up  into  the 
tribune  with  his  hair  all  rumpled,  a  look  of  ex- 
treme seriousness  on  his  face,  and  spoke  with  a 
voice  whose  capacity  and  strength  astonished  me 
who  had  not  heard  him  speak  in  public  before. 
He  spoke  very  well,  with  more  sequence  than 
Bucharin,  and  much  vitality,  and  gave  his  sum- 
mary of  the  position  abroad.  He  said  (and  Lenin 
expressed  the  same  view  to  me  afterwards)  that 
the  hostility  of  different  countries  to  Soviet  Russia 
varied  in  direct  proportion  to  their  fear  of  revolu- 
tion at  home.  Thus  France,  whose  capital  had 
suffered  most  in  the  war  and  was  weakest,  was  the 
most  uncompromising,  while  America,  whose  capi- 
tal was  in  a  good  position,  was  ready  for  agree- 
ment. England,  with  rather  less  confidence,  he 
thought  was  ready  to  follow  America.  Need  of 
raw  material  was  the  motive  tending  towards 
agreement  with  Russia.  Fear  that  the  mere  exis- 
tence of  a  Labour  Government  anywhere  in  the 

59 


world  strengthens  the  revolutionary  movement 
elsewhere,  was  the  motive  for  the  desire  to  wipe 
out  the  Soviet  at  all  cost.  Chicherin's  note,  he 
thought,  would  emphasize  the  difference  between 
these  opposing  views  and  would  tend  to  make  im- 
possible an  alliance  of  the  capitalists  against 
Russia. 

Finally,  Kamenev,  now  President  of  the  Mos- 
cow Soviet,  spoke,  objecting  to  Bucharin's  com- 
parison of  the  peace  now  sought  with  that  of  Brest 
Litovsk.  Then  everything  was  in  a  state  of  ex- 
periment and  untried.  Now  it  was  clear  to  the 
world  that  the  unity  of  Russia  could  be  achieved 
only  under  the  Soviets.  The  powers  opposed  to 
them  could  not  but  recognize  this  fact.  Some 
parts  of  Russia  (Ukraine)  had  during  the  last 
fifteen  months  experienced  every  kind  of  govern- 
ment, from  the  Soviets,  the  dictatorship  of  the  pro- 
letariat, to  the  dictatorship  of  foreign  invaders 
and  the  dictatorship  of  a  General  of  the  old  regime, 
and  they  had  after  all  returned  to  the  Soviets. 
Western  European  imperialists  must  realize  that 
the  only  Government  in  Russia  which  rested  on 

60 


the  popular  masses  was  the  Government  of  the 
Soviets  and  no  other.  Even  the  paper  of  the 
Mensheviks,  commenting  on  Chicherin's  note,  had 
declared  that  by  this  step  the  Soviet  Government 
had  shown  that  it  was  actually  a  national  Govern- 
ment acting  in  the  interests  of  the  nation.  He 
further  read  a  statement  by  Right  Social  Revolu- 
tionaries (delegates  of  that  group,  members  of  the 
Constituent  Assembly,  were  in  the  gallery)  to  the 
effect  that  they  were  prepared  to  help  the  Soviet 
Government  as  the  only  Government  in  Russia 
that  was  fighting  against  a  dictatorship  of  the 
bourgeoisie. 

Finally,  the  Committee  unanimously  passed  a 
resolution  approving  every  step  taken  in  trying  to 
obtain  peace,  and  at  the  same  time  "sending  a  fra- 
ternal greeting  to  the  Red  Army  of  workers  and 
peasants  engaged  in  ensuring  the  independence  of 
Soviet  Russia."  The  meeting  then  turned  to  talk 
of  other  things. 

I  left,  rather  miserable  to  think  how  little  I  had 
foreseen  when  Soviet  Russia  was  compelled  last 
year  to  sign  an  oppressive  peace  with  Germany, 

61 


that  the  time  would  come  when  they  would  be 
trying  to  buy  peace  from  ourselves.  As  I  went 
out  I  saw  another  unhappy  figure,  unhappy  for 
quite  different  reasons.  Angelica  Balabanova, 
after  dreaming  all  her  life  of  socialism  in  the  most 
fervent  Utopian  spirit,  had  come  at  last  to  Russia 
to  find  that  a  socialist  state  was  faced  with  diffi- 
culties at  least  as  real  as  those  which  confront 
other  states,  that  in  the  battle  there  was  little  sen- 
timent and  much  cynicism,  and  that  dreams 
worked  out  in  terms  of  humanity  in  the  face  of  the 
opposition  of  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  the  world 
are  not  easily  recognized  by  their  dreamers.  Poor 
little  Balabanova,  less  than  five  feet  high,  in  a 
black  coat  that  reached  to  her  feet  but  did  not 
make  her  look  any  taller,  was  wandering  about  like 
a  lost  and  dejected  spirit.  Not  so,  she  was  think- 
ing, should  socialists  deal  with  their  enemies. 
Somehow,  but  not  so.  Had  the  silver  trumpets 
blown  seven  times  vn  vain,  and  was  it  really  neces- 
sary to  set  to  work  and,  stone  by  stone,  with  bleed- 
ing hands,  level  the  walls  of  Jericho  ? 

There   was  snow  falling  as   I   walked  home. 
Two  workmen,  arguing,  were  walking  in  front  of 

62 


me.  "If  only  it  were  not  for  the  hunger,"  said 
one.  "But  will  that  ever  change1?"  said  the 
other.  ' 


KAMENEV  AND  THE  MOSCOW  SOVIET 

February  nth. 

LITVINOV  has  been  unlucky  in  his  room  in  the 
Metropole.  It  is  small,  dark  and  dirty,  and  colder 
than  mine.  He  was  feeling  ill  and  his  chest  was 
hurting  him,  perhaps  because  of  his  speech  last 
night;  but  while  I  was  there  Kamenev  rang  him 
up  on  the  telephone,  told  him  he  had  a  car  below, 
and  would  he  come  at  once  to  the  Moscow  Soviet 
to  speak  on  the  international  situation*?  Litvinov 
tried  to  excuse  himself,  but  it  was  no  use,  and  he 
said  to  me  that  if  I  wanted  to  see  Kamenev  I  had 
better  come  along.  We  found  Kamenev  in  the 
hall,  and  after  a  few  minutes  in  a  little  Ford  car 
we  were  at  the  Moscow  Soviet.  The  Soviet 
meets  in  the  small  lecture  theatre  of  the  old  Poly- 
technic. When  we  arrived,  a  party  meeting  was 
going  on,  and  Kamenev,  Litvinov,  and  I  went 
behind  the  stage  to  a  little  empty  room,  where  we 


were  joined  by  a  member  of  the  Soviet  whose 
name  I  forget. 

It  was  Kamenev's  first  talk  with  Litvinov  after 
his  return,  and  I  think  they  forgot  that  I  was 
there.  Kamenev  asked  Litvinov  what  he  meant 
to  do,  and  Litvinov  told  him  he  wished  to  establish 
a  special  department  of  control  to  receive  all  com- 
plaints, to  examine  into  the  efficiency  of  different 
commissariats,  to  get  rid  of  parallelism,  etc.,  and, 
in  fact,  to  be  the  most  unpopular  department  in 
Moscow.  Kamenev  laughed.  "You  need  not 
think  you  are  the  first  to  have  that  idea.  Every 
returning  envoy  without  exception  has  the  same. 
Coming  back  from  abroad  they  notice  more  than 
we  do  the  inefficiencies  here,  and  at  once  think 
they  will  set  everything  right.  Rakovsky  sat  here 
for  months  dreaming  of  nothing  else.  Joffe  was 
the  same  when  he  came  back  from  that  tidy  Berlin. 
Now  you;  and  when  Vorovsky  comes  (Vorovsky 
was  still  in  Petrograd)  I  am  ready  to  wager  that 
he  too  has  a  scheme  for  general  control  waiting  in 
his  pocket.  The  thing  cannot  be  done.  The  only 
way  is,  when  something  obviously  needs  doing,  to 
put  in  some  one  we  can  trust  to  get  it  done.  Soap 

65 


is  hard  to  get.  Good.  Establish  a  commission 
and  soap  instantly  disappears.  But  put  in  one 
man  to  see  that  soap  is  forthcoming,  and  somehow 
or  other  we  get  it." 

"Where  is  the  soap  industry  concentrated?" 
"There  are  good  factories,  well  equipped,  here, 
but  they  are  not  working,  partly  for  lack  of  mate- 
rial and  partly,  perhaps,  because  some  crazy  fool 
imagined  that  to  take  an  inventory  you  must  bring 
everything  to  a  standstill." 

Litvinov  asked  him  what  he  thought  of  the  posi- 
tion as  a  whole.  He  said  good,  if  only  transport 
could  be  improved;  but  before  the  public  of  Mos- 
cow could  feel  an  appreciable  improvement  it 
would  be  necessary  that  a  hundred  wagons  of 
foodstuffs  should  be  coming  in  daily.  At  present 
there  are  seldom  more  than  twenty.  I  asked  Ka- 
menev  about  the  schools,  and  he  explained  that 
one  of  their  difficulties  was  due  to  the  militarism 
forced  upon  them  by  external  attacks.  He  ex- 
plained that  the  new  Red  Army  soldiers,  being 
mostly  workmen,  are  accustomed  to  a  higher  stand- 
ard of  comfort  than  the  old  army  soldiers,  who 
were  mostly  peasants.  They  objected  to  the 

66 


planks  which  served  as  beds  in  the  old,  abomin- 
able, over-crowded  and  unhealthy  barracks. 
Trotsky,  looking  everywhere  for  places  to  put  his 
darlings,  found  nothing  more  suitable  than  the 
schools;  and,  in  Kamenev's  words,  "We  have  to 
fight  hard  for  every  school."  Another  difficulty, 
he  said,  was  the  lack  of  school  books.  Histories, 
for  example,  written  under  the  censorship  and  in 
accordance  with  the  principles  of  the  old  regime, 
were  now  useless,  and  new  ones  were  not  ready, 
apart  from  the  difficulty  of  getting  paper  and  of 
printing.  A  lot,  however,  was  being  done. 
There  was  no  need  for  a  single  child  in  Moscow  to 
go  hungry.  150,000  to  180,000  children  got  free 
meals  daily  in  the  schools.  Over  10,000  pairs  of 
felt  boots  had  been  given  to  children  who  needed 
them.  The  number  of  libraries  had  enormously 
increased.  Physically  workmen  lived  in  far  worse 
conditions  than  in  1912,  but  as  far  as  their  spirit- 
ual welfare  was  concerned  there  could  be  no  com- 
parison. Places  like  the  famous  Yar  restaurant, 
where  once  the  rich  went  to  amuse  themselves 
with  orgies  of  feeding  and  drinking  and  flirting 
with  gypsies,  were  now  made  into  working  men's 


clubs  and  theatres,  where  every  working  man  had 
a  right  to  go.  As  for  the  demand  for  literature 
from  the  provinces,  it  was  far  beyond  the  utmost 
efforts  of  the  presses  and  the  paper  stores  to 
supply. 

When  the  party  meeting  ended,  we  went  back 
to  the  lecture  room  where  the  members  of  the 
Soviet  had  already  settled  themselves  in  their 
places.  I  was  struck  at  once  by  the  absence  of  the 
general  public  which  in  the  old  days  used  to 
crowd  the  galleries  to  overflowing.  The  political 
excitement  of  the  revolution  has  passed,  and  to- 
day there  were  no  more  spectators  than  are  usually 
to  be  found  in  the  gallery  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. The  character  of  the  Soviet  itself  had  not 
changed.  Practically  every  man  sitting  on  the 
benches  was  obviously  a  workman  and  keenly  in- 
tent on  what  was  being  said.  Litvinov  practi- 
cally repeated  his  speech  of  last  night,  making  it, 
however,  a  little  more  demagogic  in  character, 
pointing  out  that  after  the  Allied  victory,  the  only 
corner  of  the  world  not  dominated  by  Allied  capi- 
tal was  Soviet  Russia. 

The  Soviet  passed  a  resolution  expressing  "firm 
68 


confidence  that  the  Soviet  Government  will  suc- 
ceed in  getting  peace  and  so  in  opening  a  wide  road 
to  the  construction  of  a  proletarian  state."  A  note 
was  passed  up  to  Kamenev  who,  glancing  at  it,  an- 
nounced that  the  newly  elected  representative  of 
the  Chinese  workmen  in  Moscow  wished  to  speak. 
This  was  Chitaya  Kuni,  a  solid  little  Chinaman 
with  a  big  head,  in  black  leather  coat  and  breeches. 
I  had  often  seen  him  before,  and  wondered  who  he 
was.  He  was  received  with  great  cordiality  and 
made  a  quiet,  rather  shy  speech  in  which  he  told 
them  he  was  learning  from  them  how  to  introduce 
socialism  in  China,  and  more  compliments  of  the 
same  sort.  Reinstein  replied,  telling  how  at  an 
American  labour  congress  some  years  back  the 
Americans  shut  the  door  in  the  face  of  a  represent- 
ative of  a  union  of  foreign  workmen.  "Such,"  he 
said,  "was  the  feeling  in  America  at  the  time  when 
Gompers  was  supreme,  but  that  time  has  passed." 
Still,  as  I  listened  to  Reinstein,  I  wondered  in  how 
many  other  countries  besides  Russia,  a  representa- 
tive of  foreign  labour  would  be  thus  welcomed. 
The  reason  has  probably  little  to  do  with  the  good- 
heartedness  of  the  Russians.  Owing  to  the  gen- 

69 


eral  unification  of  wages  Mr.  Kuni  could  not  rep- 
resent the  competition  of  cheap  labour.  I  talked 
to  the  Chinaman  afterwards.  He  is  president  of 
the  Chinese  Soviet.  He  told  me  they  had  just 
about  a  thousand  Chinese  workmen  in  Moscow, 
and  therefore  had  a  right  to  representation  in  the 
government  of  the  town.  I  asked  about  the  Chi- 
nese in  the  Red  Army,  and  he  said  there  were  two 
or  three  thousand,  not  more. 


70 


AN  EX-CAPITALIST 

February  13th. 

I  DRANK  tea  with  an  old  acquaintance  from  the 
provinces,  a  Russian  who,  before  the  revolution, 
owned  a  leather-bag  factory  which  worked  in  close 
connection  with  his  uncle's  tannery.  He  gave  me 
a  short  history  of  events  at  home.  The  uncle  had 
started  with  small  capital,  and  during  the  war  had 
made  enough  to  buy  outright  the  tannery  in  which 
he  had  had  shares.  The  story  of  his  adventures 
since  the  October  revolution  is  a  very  good  illus- 
tration of  the  rough  and  ready  way  in  which  theory 
gets  translated  into  practice.  I  am  writing  it,  as 
nearly  as  possible,  as  it  was  told  by  the  nephew. 

During  the  first  revolution,  that  is  from  March 
till  October  1917,  he  fought  hard  against  the 
workmen,  and  was  one  of  the  founders  of  a  Soviet 
of  factory  owners,  the  object  of  which  was  to  de- 
feat the  efforts  of  the  workers'  Soviets.1  This,  of 

1  By  agreeing  upon  lock-outs,  etc. 
71 


course,  was  smashed  by  the  October  Revolution, 
and  "Uncle,  after  being  forced,  as  a  property 
owner,  to  pay  considerable  contributions,  watched 
the  newspapers  closely,  realized  that  after  the  na- 
tionalization of  the  banks  resistance  was  hopeless, 
and  resigned  himself  to  do  what  he  could,  not  to 
lose  his  factory  altogether." 

He  called  together  all  the  workmen,  and  pro- 
posed that  they  should  form  an  artel  or  co-opera- 
tive society  and  take  the  factory  into  their  own 
hands,  each  man  contributing  a  thousand  roubles 
towards  the  capital  with  which  to  run  it.  Of 
course  the  workmen  had  not  got  a  thousand  roubles 
apiece,  "so  uncle  offered  to  pay  it  in  for  them,  on 
the  understanding  that  they  would  eventually  pay 
him  back."  This  was  illegal,  but  the  little  town 
was  a  long  way  from  the  centre  of  things,  and  it 
seemed  a  good  way  out  of  the  difficulty.  He  did 
not  expect  to  get  it  back,  but  he  hoped  in  this  way 
to  keep  control  of  the  tannery,  which  he  wished  to 
develop,  having  a  paternal  interest  in  it. 

Things  worked  very  well.  They  elected  a  com- 
mittee of  control.  "Uncle  was -elected  president, 
I  was  elected  vice-president,  and  there  were  three 

72 


workmen.  We  are  working  on  those  lines  to  this 
day.  They  give  uncle  1,500  roubles  a  month, 
me  a  thousand,  and  the  bookkeeper  a  thousand. 
The  only  difficulty  is  that  the  men  will  treat  uncle 
as  the  owner,  and  this  may  mean  trouble  if  things 
go  wrong.  Uncle  is  for  ever  telling  them,  'It's 
your  factory,  don't  call  me  Master,'  and  they 
reply,  'Yes,  it's  our  factory  all  right,  but  you  are 
still  Master,  and  that  must  be.'  " 

Trouble  came  fast  enough,  with  the  tax  levied 
on  the  propertied  classes.  "Uncle,"  very  wisely, 
had  ceased  to  be  a  property  owner.  He  had  given 
up  his  house  to  the  factory,  and  been  allotted 
rooms  in  it,  as  president  of  the  factory  Soviet. 
He  was  therefore  really  unable  to  pay  when  the 
people  from  the  District  Soviet  came  to  tell  him 
that  he  had  been  assessed  to  pay  a  tax  of  sixty 
thousand  roubles.  He  explained  the  position. 
The  nephew  was  also  present  and  joined  in  the 
argument,  whereupon  the  tax-collectors  consulted 
a  bit  of  paper  and  retorted,  "A  tax  of  twenty  thou- 
sand has  been  assessed  on  you  too.  Be  so  good  as 
to  put  your  coat  on." 

That  meant  arrest,  and  the  nephew  said  he  had 
73 


five  thousand  roubles  and  would  pay  that,  but 
could  pay  no  more.  Would  that  do*? 

"Very  well,"  said  the  tax-collector,  "fetch  it." 

The  nephew  fetched  it. 

"And  now  put  your  coat  on." 

"But  you  said  it  would  be  all  right  if  I  paid  the 
five  thousand !" 

"That's  the  only  way  to  deal  with  people  like 
you.  We  recognize  that  your  case  is  hard,  and 
we  dare  say  that  you  will  get  off.  But  the  Soviet 
has  told  us  to  collect  the  whole  tax  or  the  people 
who  refuse  to  pay  it,  and  they  have  decreed  that 
if  we  came  back  without  one  or  the  other,  we  shall 
go  to  prison  ourselves.  You  can  hardly  expect  us 
to  go  and  sit  in  prison  out  of  pity  for  you.  So  on 
with  your  coat  and  come  along." 

They  went,  and  at  the  militia  headquarters  were 
shut  into  a  room  with  barred  windows  where  they 
were  presently  joined  by  most  of  the  other  rich 
men  of  the  town,  all  in  a  rare  state  of  indignation, 
and  some  of  them  very  angry  with  "Uncle,"  for 
taking  things  so  quietly.  "Uncle  was  worrying 
about  nothing  in  the  world  but  the  tannery  and 
the  leather-works  which  he  was  afraid  might  get 

74 


into  difficulties  now  that  both  he  and  I  were  un- 
der lock  and  key." 

The  plutocracy  of  the  town  being  thus  gathered 
in  the  little  room  at  the  militia-house,  their  wives 
came,  timorously  at  first,  and  chattered  through 
the  windows.  My  informant,  being  unmarried, 
sent  word  to  two  or  three  of  his  friends,  in  order 
that  he  might  not  be  the  only  one  without  some 
one  to  talk  with  outside.  The  noise  was  some- 
thing prodigious,  and  the  head  of  the  militia 
finally  ran  out  into  the  street  and  arrested  one  of 
the  women,  but  was  so  discomfited  when  she  re- 
moved her  shawl  and  he  recognized  her  as  his  host- 
ess at  a  house  where  he  had  been  billeted  as  a  sol- 
dier that  he  hurriedly  let  her  go.  The  extraordi- 
nary parliament  between  the  rich  men  of  the  town 
and  their  wives  and  friends,  like  a  crowd  of  hoodie 
crows,  chattering  outside  the  window,  continued 
until  dark.  I 

Next  day  the  workmen  from  the  tannery  came 
to  the  militia-house  and  explained  that  "Uncle" 
had  really  ceased  to  be  a  member  of  the  propertied 
classes,  that  he  was  necessary  to  them  as  president 
of  their  soviet,  and  that  they  were  willing  to  secure 

75 


his  release  by  paying  half  of  the  tax  demanded 
from  him  out  of  the  factory  funds.  Uncle  got 
together  thirty  thousand,  the  factory  contributed 
another  thirty,  and  he  was  freed,  being  given  a 
certificate  that  he  had  ceased  to  be  an  exploiter  or 
a  property  owner,  and  would  in  future  be  subject 
only  to  such  taxes  as  might  be  levied  on  the  work- 
ing population.  The  nephew  was  also  freed,  on 
the  grounds  that  he  was  wanted  at  the  leather- 
works. 

I  asked  him  how  things  were  going  on.  He 
said,  "Fairly  well,  only  uncle  keeps  worrying  be- 
cause the  men  still  call  him  'Master.'  Otherwise, 
he  is  very  happy  because  he  has  persuaded  the 
workmen  to  set  aside  a  large  proportion  of  the 
profits  for  developing  the  business  and  building  a 
new  wing  to  the  tannery." 

"Do  the  men  work?" 

"Well,"  he  said,  "we  thought  that  when  the 
factory  was  in  their  own  hands  they  would  work 
better,  but  we  do  not  think  they  do  so,  not  notice- 
ably, anyhow." 

"Do  they  work  worse?" 

"No,  that  is  not  noticeable  either." 


I  tried  to  get  at  his  political  views.  Last  sum- 
mer he  had  told  me  that  the  Soviet  Government 
could  not  last  more  than  another  two  or  three 
months.  He  was  then  looking  forward  to  its 
downfall.  Now  he  did  not  like  it  any  better,  but 
he  was  very  much  afraid  of  war  being  brought 
into  Russia,  or  rather  of  the  further  disorders 
which  war  would  cause.  He  took  a  queer  sort  of 
pride  in  the  way  in  which  the  territory  of  the  Rus- 
sian republic  was  gradually  resuming  its  old  fron- 
tiers. "In  the  old  days  no  one  ever  thought  the 
Red  Army  would  come  to  anything,"  he  said. 
"You  can't  expect  much  from  the  Government, 
but  it  does  keep  order,  and  I  can  do  my  work  and 
rub  along  all  right."  It  was  quite  funny  to  hear 
him  in  one  breath  grumbling  at  the  revolution  and 
in  the  next  anxiously  asking  whether  I  did  not 
think  they  had  weathered  the  storm,  so  that  there 
would  be  no  more  disorders. 

Knowing  that  in  some  country  places  there  had 
been  appalling  excesses,  I  asked  him  how  the  Red 
Terror  that  followed  the  attempt  on  the  life  of 
Lenin  had  shown  itself  in  their  district.  He 
laughed. 

77 


"We  got  off  very  cheaply,"  he  said.  "This  is 
what  happened.  A  certain  rich  merchant's  widow 
had  a  fine  house,  with  enormous  stores  of  all  kinds 
of  things,  fine  knives  and  forks,  and  too  many  of 
everything.  For  instance,  she  had  twenty-two 
samovars  of  all  sizes  and  sorts.  Typical  mer- 
chant's house,  so  many  tablecloths  that  they  could 
not  use  them  all  if  they  lived  to  be  a  hundred. 
Well,  one  fine  day,  early  last  summer,  she  was  told 
that  her  house  was  wanted  and  that  she  must  clear 
out.  For  two  days  she  ran  hither  and  thither  try- 
ing to  get  out  of  giving  it  up.  Then  she  saw  it 
was  no  good,  and  piled  all  those  things,  samovars 
and  knives  and  forks  and  dinner  services  and  table- 
cloths and  overcoats  (there  were  over  a  dozen  fur 
overcoats)  in  the  garrets  which  she  closed  and 
sealed,  and  got  the  president  of  the  Soviet  to  come 
and  put  his  seal  also.  In  the  end  things  were  so 
friendly  that  he  even  put  a  sentinel  there  to  see 
that  the  seal  should  not  be  broken.  Then  came 
the  news  from  ,Petrograd  and  Moscow  about  the 
Red  terror,  and  the  Soviet,  after  holding  a  meet- 
ing and  deciding  that  it  ought  to  do  something,  and 
being  on  too  good  terms  with  all  of  us  to  do  any- 

78 


thing  very  bad,  suddenly  remembered  poor  Maria 
Nicolaevna's  garrets.  They  broke  the  seals  and 
tumbled  out  all  the  kitchen  things,  knives,  forks, 
plates,  furniture,  the  twenty-two  samovars  and  the 
overcoats,  took  them  in  carts  to  the  Soviet  and  de- 
clared them  national  property.  National  prop- 
erty !  And  a  week  or  two  later  there  was  a  wed- 
ding of  a  daughter  of  one  of  the  members  of  the 
Soviet,  and  somehow  or  other  the  knives  and  forks 
were  on  the  table,  and  as  for  samovars,  there  were 
enough  to  make  tea  for  a  hundred." 


79 


A  THEORIST  OF  REVOLUTION 

February  13th. 

AFTER  yesterday's  talk  with  a  capitalist  victim  of 
the  revolution,  I  am  glad  for  the  sake  of  contrast 
to  set  beside  it  a  talk  with  one  of  the  revolution's 
jchief  theorists.  The  leather-worker  illustrated  the 
revolution  as  it  affects  an  individual.  The  revolu- 
tionary theorist  was  quite  incapable  of  even  con- 
sidering his  own  or  any  other  individual  interests 
and  thought  only  in  terms  of  enormous  move- 
ments in  which  the  experiences  of  an  individual 
had  only  the  significance  of  the  adventures  of  one 
ant  among  a  myriad.  Bucharin,  member  of  the 
old  economic  mission  to  Berlin,  violent  opponent 
of  the  Brest  peace,  editor  of  Pravda,  author  of 
many  books  on  economics  and  revolution,  indefa- 
tigable theorist,  found  me  drinking  tea  at  a  table 
in  the  Metropole. 

I  had  just  bought  a  copy  of  a  magazine  which 
80 


contained  a  map  of  the  world,  in  which  most  of 
Europe  was  coloured  red  or  pink  for  actual  or  po- 
tential revolution.  I  showed  it  to  Bucharin  and 
said,  "You  cannot  be  surprised  that  people  abroad 
talk  of  you  as  of  the  new  Imperialists." 

Bucharin  took  the  map  and  looked  at  it. 

"Idiotism,  rank  idiotism!"  he  said.  "At  the 
same  time,"  he  added,  "I  do  think  we  have  entered 
upon  a  period  of  revolution  which  may  last  fifty 
years  before  the  revolution  is  at  last  victorious  in 
all  Europe  and  finally  in  all  the  world." 

Now,  I  have  a  stock  theory  which  I  am  used  to 
set  before  revolutionaries  of  all  kinds,  nearly  al- 
ways with  interesting  results.  (See  p.  118.)  I 
tried  it  on  Bucharin.  I  said : — 

"You  people  are  always  saying  that  there  will 
be  revolution  in  England.  Has  it  not  occurred  to 
you  that  England  is  a  factory  and  not  a  granary, 
so  that  in  the  event  of  revolution  we  should  be 
immediately  cut  off  from  all  food  supplies.  Ac- 
cording to  your  own  theories,  English  capital 
would  unite  with  American  in  ensuring  that  within 
six  weeks  the  revolution  had  nothing  to  eat.  Eng- 
land is  not  a  country  like  Russia  where  you  can 

8l 


feed  yourselves  somehow  or  other  by  simply  walk- 
ing to  where  there  is  food.  Six  weeks  would  see 
starvation  and  reaction  in  England.  I  am  in- 
clined to  think  that  a  revolution  in  England 
would  do  Russia  more  harm  than  good." 

Bucharin  laughed.  "You  old  counter-revolu- 
tionary !"  he  said.  "That  would  be  all  true,  but 
you  must  look  further.  You  are  right  in  one 
thing.  If  the  revolution  spreads  in  Europe,  Amer- 
ica will  cut  off  food  supplies.  But  by  that  time 
we  shall  be  getting  food  from  Siberia." 

"And  is  the  poor  Siberian  railway  to  feed  Rus- 
sia, Germany,  and  England*?" 

"Before  then  Pichon  and  his  friends  will  have 
gone.  There  will  be  France  to  feed  too.  But 
you  must  not  forget  that  there  are  the  cornfields 
of  Hungary  and  Roumania.  Once  civil  war  ends 
in  Europe,  Europe  can  feed  herself.  With  Eng- 
lish and  German  engineering  assistance  we  shall 
soon  turn  Russia  into  an  effective  grain  supply  for 
all  the  working  men's  republics  of  the  Continent. 
But  even  then  the  task  will  be  only  beginning. 
The  moment  there  is  revolution  in  England,  the 
English  colonies  will  throw  themselves  eagerly 

82 


into  the  arms  of  America.  Then  will  come  Amer- 
ica's turn,  and,  finally,  it  is  quite  likely  that  we 
shall  all  have  to  combine  to  overthrow  the  last 
stronghold  of  capitalism  in  some  South  African 
bourgeois  republic.  I  can  well  imagine,"  he  said, 
looking  far  away  with  his  bright  little  eyes  through 
the  walls  of  the  dark  dining  room,  ''that  the  work- 
ing men's  republics  of  Europe  may  have  to  have  a 
colonial  policy  of  an  inverse  kind.  Just  as  now 
you  conquer  backward  races  in  order  to  exploit 
them,  so  in  the  future  you  may  have  to  conquer  the 
colonists  to  take  from  them  the  means  of  exploita- 
tion. There  is  only  one  thing  I  am  afraid  of." 

"And  what  is  that?" 

"Sometimes  I  am  afraid  that  the  struggle  will 
be  so  bitter  and  so  long  drawn  out  that  the  whole 
of  European  culture  may  be  trampled  under  foot." 

I  thought  of  my  leather-worker  of  yesterday, 
one  of  thousands  experiencing  in  their  own  persons 
the  appalling  discomforts,  the  turn  over  and  re- 
valuation of  all  established  values  that  revolution, 
even  without  death  and  civil  war,  means  to  the 
ordinary  man;  and,  being  perhaps  a  little  faint- 
hearted, I  finished  my  tea  in  silence.  Bucharin, 

83 


after  carelessly  opening  these  colossal  perspectives, 
drank  his  tea  in  one  gulp,  prodigiously  sweetened 
with  my  saccharin,  reminded  me  of  his  illness  in 
the  summer,  when  Radek  scoured  the  town  for 
sweets  for  him,  curing  him  with  no  other  medicine, 
and  then  hurried  off,  fastening  his  coat  as  he  went, 
a  queer  little  De  Quincey  of  revolution,  to  disap- 
pear into  the  dusk,  before,  half  running,  half  walk- 
ing, as  his  way  is,  he  reached  the  other  end  of  the 
big  dimly  lit,  smoke-filled  dining  room. 


EFFECTS  OF  ISOLATION 

February  14th. 

I  HAD  a  rather  grim  talk  with  Meshtcheriakov  at 
dinner.  He  is  an  old  Siberian  exile,  who  visited 
England  last  summer.  He  is  editing  a  monthly 
magazine  in  Moscow,  mostly  concerned  with  the 
problems  of  reconstruction,  and  besides  that  doing 
a  lot  of  educational  work  among  the  labouring 
classes.  He  is  horrified  at  the  economic  position 
of  the  country.  Isolation,  he  thinks,  is  forcing 
Russia  backwards  towards  a  primeval  state. 

"We  simply  cannot  get  things.  For  example,  I 
am  lecturing  on  mathematics.  I  have  more  pupils 
than  I  can  deal  with.  They  are  as  greedy  for 
knowledge  as  sponges  for  water,  and  I  cannot  get 
even  the  simplest  text-books  for  them.  I  cannot 
even  find  in  the  second-hand  book  stores  an  old 
Course  of  Mathematics  from  which  I  could  myself 
make  a  series  of  copies  for  them.  I  have  to  teach 

85 


like  a  teacher  of  the  middle  ages.  But,  like  him, 
I  have  pupils  who  want  to  learn." 

"In  another  three  years,"  said  some  one  else  at 
the  table,  "we  shall  be  living  in  ruins.  Houses 
in  Moscow  were  always  kept  well  warmed.  Lack 
of  transport  has  brought  with  it  lack  of  fuel,  and 
water-pipes  have  burst  in  thousands  of  houses. 
We  cannot  get  what  is  needed  to  mend  them.  In 
the  same  way  we  cannot  get  paints  for  the  walls, 
which  are  accordingly  rotting.  In  another  three 
years  we  shall  have  all  the  buildings  of  Moscow 
tumbling  about  our  ears." 

Some  one  else  joined  in  with  a  laugh:  "In 
ten  years  we  shall  be  running  about  on  all  fours." 

"And  in  twenty  we  shall  begin  sprouting  tails." 

Meshtcheriakov  finished  his  soup  and  laid  down 
his  wooden  spoon. 

"There  is  another  side  to  all  these  things,"  he 
said.  "In  Russia,  even  if  the  blockade  lasts,  we 
shall  get  things  established  again  sooner  than  any- 
where else,  because  we  have  all  the  raw  materials 
in  our  own  country.  With  us  it  is  a  question  of 
transport  only,  and  of  transport  within  our  own 
borders.  In  a  few  years,  I  am  convinced,  in  spite 

86 


of  all  that  is  working  against  us,  Russia  will  be  a 
better  place  to  live  in  than  anywhere  else  in  Eu- 
rope. But  we  have  a  bad  time  to  go  through. 
And  not  we  alone.  The  effects  of  the  war  are 
scarcely  visible  as  yet  in  the  west,  but  they  will 
become  visible.  Humanity  has  a  period  of  tor- 
ment before  it.  .  .  ." 

"Bucharin  says  fifty  years,"  I  said,  referring 
to  my  talk  of  yesterday. 

"Maybe.  I  think  less  than  that.  But  the 
revolution  will  be  far  worse  for  you  nations  of  the 
west  than  it  has  been  for  us.  In  the  west,  if  there 
is  revolution,  they  will  use  artillery  at  once,  and 
wipe  out  whole  districts.  The  governing  classes 
in  the  west  are  determined  and  organized  in  a  way 
our  home-grown  capitalists  never  were.  The 
Autocracy  never  allowed  them  to  organize,  so, 
when  the  Autocracy  itself  fell,  our  task  was  com- 
paratively easy.  There  was  nothing  in  the  way. 
It  will  not  be  like  that  in  Germany." 


AN  EVENING  AT  THE  OPERA 

I  READ  in  one  of  the  newspapers  that  a  member  of 
the  American  Commission  in  Berlin  reasoned  from 
the  fact  that  the  Germans  were  crowding  to  thea- 
tres and  spectacles  that  they  could  not  be  hungry. 
There  can  be  no  question  about  the  hunger  of  the 
people  of  Moscow,  but  the  theatres  are  crowded, 
and  there  is  such  demand  for  seats  that  speculators 
acquire  tickets  in  the  legitimate  way  and  sell  them 
illicitly  near  the  doors  of  the  theatre  to  people  who 
have  not  been  able  to  get  in,  charging,  of  course, 
double  the  price  or  even  more.  Interest  in  the 
theatre,  always  keen  in  Moscow,  seems  to  me  to 
have  rather  increased  than  decreased.  There  is  a 
School  of  Theatrical  Production,  with  lectures  on 
every  subject  connected  with  the  stage,  from  stage 
carpentry  upwards.  A  Theatrical  Bulletin  is  pub- 
lished three  times  weekly,  containing  the  pro- 
grammes of  all  the  theatres  and  occasional  articles 


on  theatrical  subjects.  I  had  been  told  in  Stock- 
holm that  the  Moscow  theatres  were  closed.  The 
following  is  an  incomplete  list  of  the  plays  and 
spectacles  to  be  seen  at  various  theatres  on  Feb- 
ruary 13  and  February  14,  copied  from  the  Theat- 
rical Bulletin  of  those  dates.  Just  as  it  would  be 
interesting  to  know  what  French  audiences  en- 
joyed at  the  time  of  the  French  revolution,  so  I 
think  it  worth  while  to  record  the  character  of 
the  entertainments  at  present  popular  in  Moscow. 

Opera  at  the  Great  Theatre. — "Sadko"  by  Rim- 

sky-Korsakov  and  "Samson  and  Delilah"  by 

Saint-Saens. 
Small  State  Theatre. — "Besheny  Dengi"  by  Os- 

trovsky  and  "Starik"  by  Gorky. 
Moscow    Art    Theatre. — 'The    Cricket    on    the 

Hearth"  by  Dickens  and  "The  Death  of  Pa- 

zuchin"  by  Saltykov-Shtche'drin. 
Opera. — "Selo  Stepantchiko"  and  "Coppelia." 
People's    Palace. — "Dubrovsky"    by    Napravnik 

and  "Demon"  by  Rubinstein. 
Zamoskvoretzky  Theatre. — "Groza"  by  Ostrovsky 

and  "Meshtchane"  by  Gorky. 


Popular  Theatre. — "The  Miracle  of  Saint  An- 
thony" by  Maeterlinck. 
Komissarzhevskaya       Theatre. — "A      Christmas 

Carol"    by    Dickens    and    "The    Accursed 

Prince"  by  Remizov. 
Korsh  Theatre. — "Much  Ado  about  Nothing"  by 

Shakespeare    and    "Le    Misanthrope"    and 

"Georges  Dandin"  by  Moliere. 
Dramatic  Theatre. — "Alexander  I"  by  Merezh- 

kovsky. 
Theatre  of  Drama  and  Comedy. — "Little  Dorrit" 

by  Dickens  and  "The  King's  Barber"  by  Lu- 

nacharsky. 

Besides  these,  other  theatres  were  playing  K.  R. 
(Konstantin  Romanov),  Ostrovsky,  Potapenko, 
Vinitchenko,  etc.  The  two  Studios  of  the  Mos- 
cow Art  Theatre  were  playing  "Rosmersholm"  and 
a  repertoire  of  short  plays.  They,  like  the  Art 
Theatre  Company,  occasionally  play  in  the  subur- 
ban theatres  when  their  place  at  home  is  taken  by 
other  performers. 

I  went  to  the  Great  State  Theatre  to  Saint- 
Saens'  "Samson  and  Delilah."  I  had  a  seat  in  the 

90 


box  close  above  the  orchestra,  from  which  I  could 

obtain  a  view  equally  good  of  the  stage  and  of  the 

house.     Indeed,  the  view  was  rather  better  of  the 

house  than  of  the  stage.     But  that  was  as  I  had 

wished,  for  the  house  was  what  I  had  come  to  see. 

It  had  certainly  changed  greatly  since  the  pre- 

revolutionary  period.     The  Moscow  plutocracy  of 

bald  merchants  and  bejewelled  fat  wives  had  gone. 

Gone  with  them  were  evening  dresses  and  white 

shirt  fronts.     The   whole   audience   was   in   the 

monotone  of  everyday  clothes.     The  only  contrast 

was  given  by  a  small  group  of  Tartar  women  in 

the  dress  circle,  who  were  shawled  in  white  over 

head  and  shoulders,  in  the  Tartar  fashion.     There 

were  many  soldiers,  and  numbers  of  men  who  had 

obviously  come  straight  from  their  work.     There 

were  a  good  many  grey  and  brown  woollen  jerseys 

about,  and  people  were  sitting  in  overcoats  of  all 

kinds  and  ages,  for  the  theatre  was  very  cold. 

(This,  of  course,  was  due  to  lack  of  fuel,  which 

may  in  the  long  run  lead  to  a  temporary  stoppage 

of  the  theatres  if  electricity  cannot  be  spared  for 

lighting  them.)     The  orchestra  was  also  variously 

dressed.     Most  of  the  players  of  brass  instruments 

91 


had  evidently  been  in  regimental  bands  during  the 
war,  and  still  retained  their  khaki-green  tunics 
with  a  very  mixed  collection  of  trousers  and 
breeches.  Others  were  in  every  kind  of  everyday 
clothes.  The  conductor  alone  wore  a  frock  coat, 
and  sat  in  his  place  like  a  specimen  from  another 
age,  isolated  in  fact  by  his  smartness  alike  from 
his  ragged  orchestra  and  from  the  stalls  behind 
him. 

I  looked  carefully  to  see  the  sort  of  people  who 
fill  the  stalls  under  the  new  regime,  and  decided 
that  there  has  been  a  general  transfer  of  brains 
from  the  gallery  to  the  floor  of  the  house.  The 
same  people  who  in  the  old  days  scraped  kopecks 
and  waited  to  get  a  good  place  near  the  ceiling  now 
sat  where  formerly  were  the  people  who  came  here 
to  digest  their  dinners.  Looking  from  face  to  face 
that  night  I  thought  there  were  very  few  people  in 
the  theatre  who  had  had  anything  like  a  good 
dinner  to  digest.  But,  as  for  their  keenness,  I 
can  imagine  few  audiences  to  which,  from  the 
actor's  point  of  view,  it  would  be  better  worth 
while  to  play.  Applause,  like  brains,  had  come 
down  from  the  galleries. 

92 


Of  the  actual  performance  I  have  little  to  say 
except  that  ragged  clothes  and  empty  stomachs 
seemed  to  make  very  little  difference  to  the  orches- 
tra. Helzer,  the  ballerina,  danced  as  well  before 
this  audience  as  ever  before  the  bourgeoisie.  As  I 
turned  up  the  collar  of  my  coat  I  reflected  that  the 
actors  deserved  all  the  applause  they  got  for  their 
heroism  in  playing  in  such  cold.  Now  and  then 
during  the  evening  I  was  unusually  conscious  of 
the  unreality  of  opera  generally,  perhaps  because 
of  the  contrast  in  magnificence  between  the  stage 
and  the  shabby,  intelligent  audience.  Now  and 
then,  on  the  other  hand,  stage  and  audience  seemed 
one  and  indivisible.  For  "Samson  and  Delilah" 
is  itself  a  poem  of  revolution,  and  gained  enor- 
mously by  being  played  by  people  every  one  of 
whom  had  seen  something  of  the  sort  in  real  life. 
Samson's  stirring  up  of  the  Israelites  reminded  me 
of  many  scenes  in  Petrograd  in  1917,  and  when,  at 
last,  he  brings  the  temple  down  in  ruins  on  his  tri- 
umphant enemies,  I  was  reminded  of  the  words  at- 
tributed to  Trotsky : — "If  we  are,  in  the  end,  forced 
to  go,  we  shall  slam  the  door  behind  us  in  such  a  way 
that  the  echo  shall  be  felt  throughout  the  world." 

93 


Going  home  afterwards  through  the  snow,  I  did 
not  see  a  single  armed  man.  A  year  ago  the  streets 
were  deserted  after  ten  in  the  evening  except  by 
those  who,  like  myself,  had  work  which  took  them 
to  meetings  and  such  things  late  at  night.  They 
used  to  be  empty  except  for  the  military  pickets 
round  their  log-fires.  Now  they  were  full  of  foot- 
passengers  going  home  from  the  theatres,  utterly 
forgetful  of  the  fact  that  only  twelve  months  be- 
fore they  had  thought  the  streets  of  Moscow  un- 
safe after  dark.  There  could  be  no  question  about 
it.  The  revolution  is  settling  down,  and  people 
now  think  of  other  matters  than  the  old  question, 
will  it  last  one  week  or  two*? 


94 


THE  COMMITTEE  OF  STATE 
CONSTRUCTIONS 

February  15th. 

I  WENT  by  appointment  to  see  Pavlovitch,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Committee  of  State  Constructions.  It 
was  a  very  jolly  morning  and  the  streets  were 
crowded.  As  I  walked  through  the  gate  into  the 
Red  Square  I  saw  the  usual  crowd  of  peasant 
women  at  the  little  chapel  of  the  Iberian  Virgin, 
where  there  was  a  blaze  of  candles.  On  the  wall 
of  what  used,  I  think,  to  be  the  old  town  hall,  close 
by  the  gate,  some  fanatic  agnostic  has  set  a  white 
inscription  on  a  tablet,  "Religion  is  opium  for  the 
People."  The  tablet,  which  has  been  there  a  long 
time,  is  in  shape  not  unlike  the  customary  frame 
for  a  sacred  picture.  I  saw  an  old  peasant,  evi- 
dently unable  to  read,  cross  himself  solemnly  be- 
fore the  chapel,  and  then,  turning  to  the  left,  cross 
himself  as  solemnly  before  this  anti-religious  in- 

95 


scription.  It  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  remark  in 
passing  that  the  new  Communist  programme,  while 
insisting,  as  before,  on  the  definite  separation  of 
church  and  state,  and  church  and  school,  now  in- 
cludes the  particular  statement  that  "care  should 
be  taken  in  no  way  to  hurt  the  feelings  of  the  re- 
ligious." Churches  and  chapels  are  open,  church 
processions  take  place  as  before,  and  Moscow,  as 
in  the  old  days,  is  still  a  city  of  church  bells. 

A  long  line  of  sledges  with  welcome  bags  of 
flour  was  passing  through  the  square.  Soldiers  of 
the  Red  Army  were  coming  off  parade,  laughing 
and  talking,  and  very  noticeably  smarter  than  the 
men  of  six  months  ago.  There  was  a  bright  clear 
sky  behind  the  fantastic  Cathedral  of  St.  Basil, 
and  the  rough  graves  under  the  Kremlin  wall, 
where  those  are  buried  who  died  in  the  fighting  at 
the  time  of  the  November  Revolution,  have  been 
tidied  up.  There  was  scaffolding  round  the  gate 
of  the  Kremlin  which  was  damaged  at  that  time 
and  is  being  carefully  repaired. 

The  Committee  of  State  Constructions  was 
founded  last  spring  to  co-ordinate  the  manage- 
ment of  the  various  engineering  and  other  con- 

96 


structive  works  previously  carried  on  by  independ- 
ent departments.  It  became  an  independent  or- 
gan with  its  own  finances  about  the  middle  of 
the  summer.  Its  headquarters  are  in  the  Nikol- 
skaya,  in  the  Chinese  town,  next  door  to  the  old 
building  of  the  Anglo-Russian  Trading  Company, 
which  still  bears  the  Lion  and  the  Unicorn  sculp- 
tured above  its  green  and  white  fagade  some  time 
early  in  the  seventeenth  century. 

Pavlovitch  is  a  little,  fat,  spectacled  man  with 
a  bald  head,  fringed  with  the  remains  of  red  hair, 
and  a  little  reddish  beard.  He  was  dressed  in  a 
black  leather  coat  and  trousers.  He  complained 
bitterly  that  all  his  plans  for  engineering  works 
to  improve  the  productive  possibilities  of  the  coun- 
try were  made  impracticable  by  the  imperious  de- 
mands of  war.  As  an  old  Siberian  exile  he  had 
been  living  in  France  before  the  revolution  and, 
as  he  said,  had  seen  there  how  France  made  war. 
"They  sent  her  locomotives,  and  rails  for  the  loco- 
motives to  run  on,  everything  she  needed  they  sent 
her  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  When  they  sent 
horses,  they  sent  also  hay  for  their  food,  and  shoes 
for  their  feet,  and  even  nails  for  the  shoes.  If  we 

97 


were  supplied  like  that,  Russia  would  be  at  peace 
in  a  week.  But  we  have  nothing,  and  can  get 
nothing,  and  are  forced  to  be  at  war  against  our 
will. 

"And  war  spoils  everything,"  he  continued. 
"This  committee  should  be  at  work  on  affairs  of 
peace,  making  Russia  more  useful  to  herself  and 
to  the  rest  of  the  world.  You  know  our  plans. 
But  with  fighting  on  all  our  fronts,  and  with  all 
our  best  men  away,  we  are  compelled  to  use  ninety 
per  cent,  of  our  energy  and  material  for  the  imme- 
diate needs  of  the  army.  Every  day  we  get 
masses  of  telegrams  from  all  fronts,  asking  for 
this  or  that.  For  example,  Trotsky  telegraphs 
here  simply  "We  shall  be  in  Orenburg  in  two 
days,"  leaving  us  to  do  what  is  necessary.  Then 
with  the  map  before  me,  I  have  to  send  what  will 
be  needed,  no  matter  what  useful  work  has  to  be 
abandoned  meanwhile,  engineers,  railway  gangs 
for  putting  right  the  railways,  material  for  bridges, 
and  so  on. 

"Indeed,  the  biggest  piece  of  civil  engineering 
done  in  Russia  for  many  years  was  the  direct  result 
of  our  fear  lest  you  people  or  the  Germans  should 


take  our  Baltic  fleet.  Save  the  dreadnoughts  we 
could  not,  but  I  decided  to  save  what  we  could. 
The  widening  and  deepening  of  the  canal  system 
so  as  to  shift  boats  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Volga 
had  been  considered  in  the  time  of  the  Tzar.  It 
was  considered  and  dismissed  as  impracticable. 
Once,  indeed,  they  did  try  to  take  two  torpedo- 
boats  over,  and  they  lifted  them  on  barges  to 
make  the  attempt.  Well,  we  said  that  as  the 
thing  could  be  planned,  it  could  be  done,  and  the 
canals  are  deepened  and  widened,  and  we  took 
through  them,  under  their  own  power,  seven  big 
destroyers,  six  small  destroyers  and  four  submarine 
boats,  which,  arriving  unexpectedly  before  Kazan, 
played  a  great  part  in  our  victory  there.  But  the 
pleasure  of  that  was  spoilt  for  me  by  the  knowl- 
edge that  I  had  had  to  take  men  and  material  from 
the  building  of  the  electric  power  station,  with 
which  we  hope  to  make  Petrograd  independent  of 
the  coal  supply. 

"The  difficulties  we  have  to  fight  against  are,  of 
course,  enormous,  but  much  of  what  the  old  regime 
failed  to  do,  for  want  of  initiative  or  for  other 
reasons,  we  have  done  and  are  doing.  Some  of 

99 


the  difficulties  are  of  a  most  unexpected  kind. 
The  local  inhabitants,  partly,  no  doubt,  under  the 
influence  of  our  political  opponents,  were  ex- 
tremely hostile  with  regard  to  the  building  of  the 
power  station,  simply  because  they  did  not  under- 
stand it.  I  went  there  myself,  and  explained  to 
them  what  it  would  mean,  that  their  river  would 
become  a  rich  river,  that  they  would  be  able  to  get 
cheap  power  for  all  sorts  of  works,  and  that  they 
would  have  electric  light  in  all  their  houses. 
Then  they  carried  me  shoulder  high  through  the 
village,  and  sent  telegrams  to  Lenin,  to  Zino- 
viev,  to  everybody  they  could  think  of,  and 
since  then  we  have  had  nothing  but  help  from 
them. 

"Most  of  our  energy  at  present  has  to  be  spent 
on  mending  and  making  railways  and  roads  for 
the  use  of  the  army.  Over  1 1,000  versts  of  rail- 
way are  under  construction,  and  we  have  finished 
the  railway  from  Arzamas  to  Shikhran.  Twelve 
hundred  versts  of  highroad  are  under  construction. 
And  to  meet  the  immediate  needs  of  the  army  we 
have  already  repaired  or  made  8,000  versts  of 
roads  of  various  kinds.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 

100 


internal  railway  net  of  Russia  is  by  no  means  as 
bad  as  people  make  out.  By  its  means,  hampered 
as  we  are,  we  have  been  able  to  beat  the  counter- 
revolutionaries, concentrating  our  best  troops,  now 
here,  now  there,  wherever  need  may  be.  Remem- 
ber that  the  whole  way  round  our  enormous  fron- 
tiers we  are  being  forced  to  fight  groups  of  reac- 
tionaries supported  at  first  mostly  by  the  Germans, 
now  mostly  by  yourselves,  by  the  Roumanians,  by 
the  Poles,  and  in  some  districts  by  the  Germans 
still.  Troops  fighting  on  the  Ural  front  are  fight- 
ing a  month  later  south  of  Voronezh,  and  a  month 
later  again  are  having  a  holiday,  marching  on  the 
heels  of  the  Germans  as  they  evacuate  the  occu- 
pied provinces.  Some  of  our  troops  are  not  yet 
much  good.  One  day  they  fight,  and  the  next  they 
think  they  would  rather  not.  So  that  our  best 
troops,  those  in  which  there  are  most  workmen, 
have  to  be  flung  in  all  directions.  We  are  at  work 
all  the  time  enabling  this  to  be  done,  and  making 
new  roads  to  enable  it  to  be  done  still  better. 
But  what  waste,  when  there  are  so  many  other 
things  we  want  to  do ! 

"All  the  time  the  needs  of  war  are  pressing  on 
101 


us.  To-day  is  the  first  day  for  two  months  that 
we  have  been  able  to  warm  this  building.  We 
have  been  working  here  in  overcoats  and  fur  hats 
in  a  temperature  below  freezing  point.  Why*? 
Wood  was  already  on  its  way  to  us,  when  we  had 
suddenly  to  throw  troops  northwards.  Our  wood 
had  to  be  flung  out  of  the  wagons,. and  the  Red 
Army  put  in  its  place,  and  the  wagons  sent  north 
again.  The  thing  had  to  be  done,  and  we  have 
had  to  work  as  best  we  could  in  the  cold.  Many 
of  my  assistants  have  fallen  ill.  Two  only 
yesterday  had  to  be  taken  home  in  a  condition 
something  like  that  of  a  fit,  the  result  of  prolonged 
sedentary  work  in  unheated  rooms.  I  have  lost 
the  use  of  my  right  hand  for  the  same  reason." 
He  stretched  out  his  right  hand,  which  he  had  been 
keeping  in  the  pocket  of  his  coat.  It  was  an  ugly 
sight,  with  swollen,  immovable  fingers,  like  the 
roots  of  a  vegetable. 

At  this  moment  some  one  came  in  to  speak  to 
Pavlovitch.  He  stood  at  the  table  a  little  behind 
me,  so  that  I  did  not  see  him,  but  Pavlovitch, 
noticing  that  he  looked  curiously  at  me,  said,  "Are 
you  acquaintances?"  I  looked  round  and  saw 

102 


Sukhanov,  Gorky's  friend,  formerly  one  of  the 
cleverest  Writers  on  the  Novaya  Jizn.  I  jumped 
up  and  shook  hands  with  him. 

"What,  have  you  gone  over  to  the  Bolsheviks'?" 
I  asked. 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Sukhanov,  smiling,  "but  I 
am  working  here." 

"Sukhanov  thinks  that  we  do  less  harm  than 
anybody  else,"  said  Pavlovitch,  and  laughed. 
"Go  and  talk  to  him  and  he'll  tell  you  all  there  is 
to  be  said  against  us.  And  there's  lots  to  say." 

Sukhanov  was  an  extremely  bitter  enemy  of  the 
Bolsheviks,  and  was  very  angry  with  me  when, 
over  a  year  ago,  I  told  him  I  was  convinced  that 
sooner  or  later  he  would  be  working  with  them. 
I  told  Pavlovitch  the  story,  and  he  laughed  again. 
"A  long  time  ago,"  he  said,  "Sukhanov  made 
overtures  to  me  through  Miliutin.  I  agreed,  and 
everything  was  settled,  but  when  a  note  appeared 
in  Pravda  to  say  that  he  was  going  to  work  in 
this  Committee,  he  grew  shy,  and  wrote  a  contra- 
diction. Miliutin  was  very  angry  and  asked  me 
to  publish  the  truth.  I  refused,  but  wrote  on 
that  day  in  my  diary,  'Sukhanov  will  come.' 

103 


Three  months  later  he  was  already  working  with 
us.  One  day  he  told  me  that  in  the  big  diary  of 
the  revolution  which  he  is  writing,  and  will  write 
very  well,  he  had  some  special  abuse  for  me.  'I 
have  none  for  you,'  I  said,  'but  I  will  show  you 
one  page  of  my  own  diary,'  and  I  showed  him 
that  page,  and  asked  him  to  look  at  the  date. 
Sukhanov  is  an  honest  fellow,  and  was  bound  to 
come." 

He  went  on  with  his  talk. 

"You  know,  hampered  as  we  are  by  lack  of 
everything,  we  could  not  put  up  the  fight  we  are 
putting  up  against  the  reactionaries  if  it  were  not 
for  the  real  revolutionary  spirit  of  the  people  as 
a  whole.  The  reactionaries  have  money,  muni- 
tions, supplies  of  all  kinds,  instructors,  from  out- 
side. We  have  nothing,  and  yet  we  beat  them. 
Do  you  know  that  the  English  have  given  them 
tanks?  Have  you  heard  that  in  one  place  they 
used  gases  or  something  of  the  kind,  and  blinded 
eight  hundred  men?  And  yet  we  win.  Why"? 
Because  from  every  town  we  capture  we  get  new 
strength.  And  any  town  they  tal^e  is  a  source  of 
weakness  to  them,  one  more  town  to  garrison 

104 


and  hold  against  the  wishes  of  the  population." 
"And  if  you  do  get  peace,  what  then4?" 
"We  want  from  abroad  all  that  we  cannot  make 
ourselves.     We  want  a  hundred  thousand  versts 
of  rails.     Now  we  have  to  take  up  rails  in  one 
place  to  lay  them  in  another.     We  want  new  rail- 
ways built.     We  want  dredgers  for  our  canals  and 
river  works.     We  want  excavators." 

"And  how  do  you  expect  people  to  sell  you  these 
things  when  your  foreign  credit  is  not  worth  a 
farthing?" 

"We  shall  pay  in  concessions,  giving  foreigners 
•the  right  to  take  raw  materials.  'Timber,  actual 
timber,  is  as  good  as  credit^.  We  have  huge  areas 
of  forest  in  the  north,  and  every  country  in  Eu- 
rope needs  timber.  Let  that  be  our  currency  for 
foreign  purchases.  We  are  prepared  to  say,  'You 
build  this,  or  give  us  that,  and  we  will  give  you 
the  right  to  take  so  much  timber  for  yourselves.' 
And  so  on.  And  concessions  of  other  kinds  also. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  negotiations  are  now  proceed- 
ing with  a  foreign  firm  for  the  building  of  a  rail- 
way from  the  Obi  to  Kotlas." 

"But  part  of  that  district  is  not  in  your  hands." 
105 


"If  we  get  peace  we  shall  be  able  to  arrange 
that  without  difficulty." 

Just  as  I  was  going  he  stopped  me,  and  evi- 
dently not  in  the  least  realizing  that  English  peo- 
ple generally  have  come  to  think  of  him  and  his 
friends  as  of  some  strange  sort  of  devils,  if  not 
with  horns  and  tails,  certainly  far  removed  from 
human  beings,  he  asked: — "If  we  do  get  peace, 
don't  you  think  there  will  be  engineers  and  skilled 
labourers  in  England  who  will  volunteer  to  come 
out  to  Russia  and  help  us"?  There  is  so  much  to 
do  that  I  can  promise  they  will  have  the  best  we 
can  give  them.  We  are  almost  as  short  of  skilled 
men  as  we  are  of  locomotives.  We  are  now  taking 
simple  unskilled  workmen  who  show  any  signs  of 
brains  and  training  them  as  we  go  along.  There 
must  be  engineers,  railwaymen,  mechanics  among 
English  socialists  who  would  be  glad  to  come. 
And  of  course  they  need  not  be  socialists,  so  long 
as  they  are  good  engineers." 

That  last  suggestion  of  his  is  entirely  character- 
istic. It  is  impossible  to  make  the  Bolsheviks 
realize  that  the  English  people  feel  any  hostility 
towards  them.  Nor  do  they  feel  hostility  towards 

106 


the  English  as  such.  On  my  way  back  to  the 
hotel  I  met  a  party  of  English  soldiers,  taken 
prisoners  on  the  northern  front,  walking  free,  with- 
out a  convoy,  through  the  streets. 


107 


THE  EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE  AND 
THE  TERROR 


February 

MY  general  impression  that  the  Soviet  revolution 
has  passed  through  its  period  of  internal  struggle 
and  is  concentrating  upon  constructive  work  so 
far  as  that  is  allowed  by  war  on  all  its  frontiers, 
and  that  the  population  is  settling  down  under  the 
new  regime,  was  confirmed  by  the  meeting  of  the 
Executive  Committee  which  definitely  limited  the 
powers  of  the  Extraordinary  Commission.  Be- 
fore the  sitting  was  opened  I  had  a  few  words  with 
Peters  and  with  Krylenko.  The  excitement  of 
the  internal  struggle  was  over.  It  had  been  bit- 
terly fought  within  the  party,  and  both  Krylenko 
of  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  and  Peters  of  the 
Extraordinary  Commission  were  there  merely  to 
witness  the  official  act  that  would  define  their  new 
position.  Peters  talked  of  his  failure  to  get  away 

108 


for  some  shooting;  Krylenko  jeered  at  me  for 
having  refused  to  believe  in  the  Lockhart  con- 
spiracy. Neither  showed  any  traces  of  the  bitter 
struggle  waged  within  the  party  for  and  against 
the  almost  dictatorial  powers  of  the  Extraordinary 
Commission  for  dealing  with  counter-revolu- 
tion. 

The  sitting  opened  with  a  report  by  Dserzhin- 
sky,  that  strange  ascetic  who,  when  in  prison  in 
Warsaw,  insisted  on  doing  the  dirty  work  of 
emptying  the  slops  and  cleaning  other  people's 
cells  besides  his  own,  on  a  theory  that  one  man 
should  where  possible  take  upon  himself  the  evil 
which  would  otherwise  have  to  be  shared  by  all; 
and  in  the  dangerous  beginning  of  the  revolution 
had  taken  upon  himself  the  most  unpopular  of  all 
posts,  that  of  President  of  the  Extraordinary 
Commission.  His  personal  uprightness  is  the 
complement  of  an  absolute  personal  courage, 
shown  again  and  again  during  the  last  eighteen 
months.  At  the  time  of  the  Left  Social  Revolu- 
tionary mutiny  he  went  without  a  guard  to  the 
headquarters  of  the  mutineers,  believing  that  he 
could  bring  them  to  reason,  and  when  arrested  by 

109 


them  dared  them  to  shoot  him  and  showed  so  bold 
a  front  that  in  the  end  the  soldiers  set  to  watch 
him  set  him  free  and  returned  to  their  allegiance. 
This  thin,  tallish  man,  with  a  fanatic  face  not  un- 
like some  of  the  traditional  portraits  of  St.  Francis, 
the  terror  of  counter-revolutionaries  and  criminals 
alike,  is  a  very  bad  speaker.  He  looks  into  the 
air  over  the  heads  of  his  audience  and  talks  as  if 
he  were  not  addressing  them  at  all  but  some  one 
else  unseen.  He  talks  even  of  a  subject  which  he 
knows  perfectly  with  curious  inability  to  form  his 
sentences ;  stops,  changes  words,  and  often,  recog- 
nizing that  he  cannot  finish  his  sentence,  ends 
where  he  is,  in  the  middle  of  it,  with  a  little  odd, 
deprecating  emphasis,  as  if  to  say :  "At  this  point 
there  is  a  full  stop.  At  least  so  it  seems." 

He  gave  a  short  colourless  sketch  of  the  history 
of  the  Extraordinary  Commission.  He  referred 
to  the  various  crises  with  which  it  had  had  to  deal, 
beginning  with  the  drunken  pogroms  in  Petrograd, 
the  suppression  of  the  combined  anarchists  and 
criminals  in  Moscow  (he  mentioned  that  after  that 
four  hours'  struggle  which  ended  in  the  clearing 
out  of  the  anarchists'  strongholds,  criminality  in 

110 


Moscow  decreased  by  80  per  cent.),  to  the  days 
of  the  Terror  when,  now  here,  now  there,  armed 
risings  against  the  Soviet  were  engineered  by  for- 
eigners and  by  counter-revolutionaries  working 
with  them.  He  then  made  the  point  that  through- 
out all  this  time  the  revolution  had  been  threat- 
ened by  large-scale  revolts.  Now  the  revolution 
was  safe  from  such  things  and  was  threatened  only 
by  individual  treacheries  of  various  kinds,  not  by 
things  which  needed  action  on  a  large  scale.  They 
had  traitors,  no  doubt,  in  the  Soviet  institutions 
who  were  waiting  for  the  day  (which  would  never 
come)  to  join  with  their  enemies,  and  meanwhile 
were  secretly  hampering  their  work.  They  did 
not  need  on  that  account  to  destroy  their  institu- 
tions as  a  whole.  The  struggle  with  counter- 
revolution had  passed  to  a  new  stage.  They  no 
longer  had  to  do  open  battle  with  open  enemies; 
they  had  merely  to  guard  themselves  against  indi- 
viduals. The  laws  of  war  by  which,  meeting  him 
on  the  field  of  battle,  the  soldier  had  a  right  to 
kill  his  enemy  without  trial,  no  longer  held  good. 
The  situation  was  now  that  of  peace,  where  each 
offender  must  have  his  guilt  proved  before  a 

111 


court.  Therefore  the  right  of  sentencing  was  re- 
moved from  the  Extraordinary  Commission;  but 
if,  through  unforeseen  circumstances,  the  old  con- 
ditions should  return,  they  intended  that  the  dic- 
tatorial powers  of  the  Commission  should  be  re- 
stored to  it  until  those  conditions  had  ceased. 
Thus  if,  in  case  of  armed  counter-revolution,  a  dis- 
trict were  declared  to  be  in  a  state  of  war,  the 
Extraordinary  Commission  would  resume  its  old 
powers.  Otherwise  its  business  would  be  to  hand 
offenders,  such  as  Soviet  officials  who  were  habit- 
ually late  (here  there  was  a  laugh,  the  only  sign 
throughout  his  speech  that  Dserzhinsky  was  hold- 
ing the  attention  of  his  audience),  over  to  the 
Revolutionary  Tribunal,  which  would  try  them 
and,  should  their  guilt  be  proved,  put  them  in 
concentration  camps  to  learn  to  work.  He  read 
point  by  point  the  resolutions  establishing  these 
changes  and  providing  for  the  formation  of  Revo- 
lutionary Tribunals.  Trial  to  take  place  within 
forty-eight  hours  after  the  conclusion  of  the  inves- 
tigation, and  the  investigation  to  take  not  longer 
than  a  month.  He  ended  as  he  ended  his  sen- 
tences, as  if  by  accident,  and  people  scarcely  real- 

112 


ized  he  had  finished  before  Sverdlov  announced 
the  next  speaker. 

Krylenko  proposed  an  amendment  to  ensure 
that  no  member  of  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal 
could  be  also  a  member  of  the  Extraordinary 
Commission  which  had  taken  up  and  investigated 
a  case.  His  speech  was  very  disappointing.  He 
is  not  at  his  best  when  addressing  a  serious  meet- 
ing like  that  of  the  Executive  Committee.  The 
Krylenko  who  spoke  to-night,  fluently,  clearly,  but 
without  particular  art,  is  a  very  different  Krylenko 
from  the  virtuoso  in  mob  oratory,  the  little,  dan- 
gerous, elderly  man  in  ensign's  uniform  who 
swayed  the  soldiers'  mass  meetings  in  Petrograd  a 
year  and  a  half  ago.  I  remember  hearing  him 
speak  in  barracks  soon  after  the  murder  of  Shin- 
garev  and  Kokoshkin,  urging  class  struggle  and  at 
the  same  time  explaining  the  difference  between 
that  and  the  murder  of  sick  men  in  bed.  He  re- 
ferred to  the  murder  and,  while  continuing  his 
speech,  talking  already  of  another  subject,  he  went 
through  the  actions  of  a  man  approaching  a  bed 
and  killing  a  sleeper  with  a  pistol.  It  was  a  trick, 
of  course,  but  the  thrilling,  horrible  effect  of  it 


moved  the  whole  audience  with  a  shudder  of  dis- 
gust. There  was  nothing  of  this  kind  in  his  short 
lecture  on  jurisprudence  to-night. 

Avanesov,  the  tall,  dark  secretary  of  the  Execu- 
tive Committee,  with  the  face  of  a  big,  benevolent 
hawk  hooded  in  long  black  hair,  opposed  Krylenko 
on  the  ground  that  there  were  not  enough  trust- 
worthy workers  to  ensure  that  in  country  districts 
such  a  provision  could  be  carried  out.  Finally 
the  resolution  was  passed  as  a  whole  and  the 
amendment  was  referred  to  the  judgment  of  the 
prsesidium. 

The  Committee  next  passed  to  the  consideration 
of  the  Extraordinary  Tax  levied  on  the  propertied 
classes.  Krestinsky,  Commissary  of  Finance, 
made  his  report  to  a  grim  audience,  many  of  whom 
quite  frankly  regarded  the  tax  as  a  political  mis- 
take. Krestinsky  is  a  short,  humorous  man,  in 
dark  spectacles,  dressed  more  like  a  banker  than 
like  a  Bolshevik.  It  was  clear  that  the  collection 
of  the  tax  had  not  been  as  successful  as  he  had 
previously  suggested.  I  was  interested  in  his  ref- 
erence to  the  double  purpose  of  the  tax  and  in  the 
reasons  he  gave  for  its  comparative  failure.  The 

114 


tax  had  a  fiscal  purpose,  partly  to  cover  deficit, 
partly  by  drawing  in  paper  money  to  raise  the 
value  of  the  rouble.  It  had  also  a  political  pur- 
pose. It  was  intended  to  affect  the  propertied 
classes  only,  and  thus  to  weaken  the  Kulaks  (hard- 
fists,  rich  peasants)  in  the  villages  and  to  teach  the 
poorer  peasants  the  meaning  of  the  revolution. 
Unfortunately  some  Soviets,  where  the  minority  of 
the  Kulaks  had  retained  the  unfair  domination 
given  it  by  its  economic  strength,  had  distributed 
the  tax-paying  equally  over  the  whole  population, 
thus  very  naturally  raising  the  resentment  of  the 
poor  who  found  themselves  taxed  to  the  same 
amount  as  those  who  could  afford  to  pay.  It  had 
been  necessary  to  send  circular  telegrams  empha- 
sizing the  terms  of  the  decree.  In  cases  where  the 
taxation  had  been  carried  out  as  intended  there 
had  been  no  difficulty.  The  most  significant  rea- 
son for  the  partial  unsuccess  was  that  the  proper- 
tied class,  as  such,  had  already  diminished  to  a 
greater  extent  than  had  been  supposed,  and  many 
of  those  taxed,  for  example,  as  factory  owners  were 
already  working,  not  as  factory  owners,  but  as  paid 
directors  in  nationalized  factories,  and  were  there- 


fore  no  longer  subject  to  the  tax.  In  other  words, 
the  partial  failure  of  the  tax  was  a  proof  of  the 
successful  development  of  the  revolution.  (This 
is  illustrated  by  the  concrete  case  of  "Uncle"  re- 
corded on  p.  73.)  Krestinsky  believed  that  the 
revolution  had  gone  so  far  that  no  further  tax  of 
this  kind  would  be  either  possible  or  necessary. 


116 


NOTES  OF  CONVERSATIONS  WITH 
LENIN 

WHATEVER  else  they  may  think  of  him,  not  even 
his  enemies  deny  that  Vladimir  Ilyitch  Oulianov 
(Lenin)  is  one  of  the  greatest  personalities  of  his 
time.  I  therefore  make  no  apology  for  writing 
down  such  scraps  of  his  conversation  as  seem  to 
me  to  illustrate  his  manner  of  mind. 

He  was  talking  of  the  lack  of  thinkers  in  the 
English  labour  movement,  and  said  he  remembered 
hearing  Shaw  speak  at  some  meeting.  Shaw,  he 
said,  was  "A  good  man  fallen  among  Fabians" 
and  a  great  deal  further  left  than  his  company. 
He  had  not  heard  of  "The  Perfect  Wagnerite," 
but  was  interested  when  I  told  him  the  general 
idea  of  the  book,  and  turned  fiercely  on  an  inter- 
rupter who  said  that  Shaw  was  a  clown.  "He 
may  be  a  clown  for  the.  bourgeoisie  in  a  bourgeois 
state,  but  they  would  not  think  him  a  clown  in  a 
revolution." 

117 


He  asked  whether  Sidney  Webb  was  consciously 
working  in  the  interests  of  the  capitalists,  and 
when  I  said  I  was  quite  sure  that  he  was  not,  he 
said,  "Then  he  has  more  industry  than  brains. 
He  certainly  has  great  knowledge." 

He  was  entirely  convinced  that  England  was 
on  the  eve  of  revolution,  and  pooh-poohed  my 
objections.  "Three  months  ago  I  thought  it 
would  end  in  all  the  world  having  to  fight  the 
centre  of  reaction  in  England.  But  I  do  not  think 
so  now.  Things  have  gone  further  there  than  in 
France,  if  the  news  as  to  the  extent  of  the  strikes 
is  true." 

I  pointed  out  some  of  the  circumstances,  geo- 
graphical and  economical,  which  would  make  the 
success  of  a  violent  revolution  in  England  proble- 
matical in  the  extreme,  and  put  to  him  the  same 
suggestion  that  I  put  to  Bucharin  (see  page  81), 
namely,  that  a  suppressed  movement  in  England 
would  be  worse  for  Russia  than  our  traditional 
method  of  compromise.  He  agreed  at  once,  but 
said,  "That  is  quite  true, -but  you  cannot  stop  a 
revolution  .  .  .  although  Ramsay  MacDonald 
will  try  to  at  the  last  minute.  Strikes  and  Soviets. 


If  these  two  habits  once  get  hold,  nothing  will 
keep  the  workmen  from  them.  And  Soviets,  once 
started,  must  sooner  or  later  come  to  supreme 
power."  Then,  "But  certainly  it  would  be  much 
more  difficult  in  England.  Your  big  clerk  and 
shop-keeping  class  would  oppose  it,  until  the  work- 
men broke  them.  Russia  was  indeed  the  only 
country  in  which  the  revolution  could  start.  And 
we  are  not  yet  through  our  troubles  with  the  peas- 
antry." 

I  suggested  that  one  reason  why  it  had  been  pos- 
sible in  Russia  was  that  they  had  had  room  to 
retreat. 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "The  distances  saved  us. 
The  Germans  were  frightened  of  them,  at  the  time 
when  they  could  indeed  have  eaten  us  up,  and  won 
peace,  which  the  Allies  would  have  given  them 
in  gratitude  for  our  destruction.  A  revolution  in 
England  would  have  nowhere  whither  to  retire." 

Of  the  Soviets  he  said,  "In  the  beginning  I 
thought  they  were  and  would  remain  a  purely 
Russian  form;  but  it  is  now  quire  clear  that  un- 
der various  names  they  must  be  the  instruments 
of  revolution  everywhere." 


He  expressed  the  opinion  that  in  England  they 
would  not  allow  me  to  tell  the  truth  about  Russia, 
and  gave  as  an  example  the  way  in  which  Colonel 
Robins  had  been  kept  silent  in  America.  He 
asked  about  Robins,  "Had  he  really  been  as 
friendly  to  the  Soviet  Government  as  he  made 
out1?"  I  said,  "Yes,  if  only  as  a  sportsman  ad- 
miring its  pluck  and  courage  in  difficulties."  I 
quoted  Robins'  saying,  "I  can't  go  against  a  baby 
I  have  sat  up  with  for  six  months.  But  if  there 
were  a  Bolshevik  movement  in  America  I'd  be 
out  with  my  rifle  to  fight  it  every  time."  "Now 
that,"  said  Lenin,  "is  an  honest  man  and  more 
far-seeing  than  most.  I  always  liked  that  man." 
He  shook  with  laughter  at  the  image  of  the  baby, 
and  said,  "That  baby  had  several  million  other 
folk  sitting  up  with  it  too." 

He  said  he  had  read  in  an  English  socialist  paper 
a  comparison  of  his  own  theories  with  those  of  an 
American,  Daniel  De  Leon.  He  had  then  bor- 
rowed some  of  De  Leon's  pamphlets  from  Rein- 
stein  (who  belongs  to  the  party  which  De  Leon 
founded  in  America),  read  them  for  the  first  time, 
and  was  amazed  to  see  how  far  and  how  early  De 

120 


Leon  had  pursued  the  same  train  of  thought  as  the 
Russians.  His  theory  that  representation  should 
be  by  industries,  not  by  areas,  was  already  the 
germ  of  the  Soviet  system.  He  remembered  see- 
ing De  Leon  at  an  International  Conference.  De 
Leon  made  no  impression  at  all,  a  grey  old  man, 
quite  unable  to  speak  to  such  an  audience:  but 
evidently  a  much  bigger  man  than  he  looked, 
since  his  pamphlets  were  written  before  the  ex- 
perience of  the  Russian  Revolution  of  1905. 
Some  days  afterwards  I  noticed  that  Lenin  had 
introduced  a  few  phrases  of  De  Leon,  as  if  to  do 
honour  to  his  memory,  into  the  draft  for  the  new 
programme  of  the  Communist  party. 

Talking  of  the  lies  that  are  told  about  Russia, 
he  said  it  was  interesting  to  notice  that  they  were 
mostly  perversions  of  truth  and  not  pure  inven- 
tions, and  gave  as  an  example  the  recent  story 
that  he  had  recanted.  "Do  you  know  the  origin 
of  that?"  he  said.  "I  was  wishing  a  happy  New 
Year  to  a  friend  over  the  telephone,  and  said 
'And  may  we  commit  fewer  stupidities  this  year 
than  last !'  Some  one  overheard  it  and  told  some 
one  else.  A  newspaper  announced  'Lenin  says  we 

121 


are    committing    stupidities'    and    so    the    story 
started." 

More  than  ever,  Lenin  struck  me  as  a  happy 
man.  Walking  home  from  the  Kremlin,  I  tried 
to  think  of  any  other  man  of  his  calibre  who  had 
had  a  similar  joyous  temperament.  I  could  think 
of  none.  This  little,  bald-headed,  wrinkled  man, 
who  tilts  his  chair  this  way  and  that,  laughing 
over  one  thing  or  another,  ready  any  minute  to 
give  serious  advice  to  any  who  interrupt  him  to 
ask  for  it,  advice  so  well  reasoned  that  it  is  to  his 
followers  far  more  compelling  than  any  command, 
every  one  of  his  wrinkles  is  a  wrinkle  of  laughter, 
not  of  worry.  I  think  the  reason  must  be  that  he 
is  the  first  great  leader  who  utterly  discounts  the 
value  of  his  own  personality.  He  is  quite  without 
personal  ambition.  More  than  that,  he  believes, 
as  a  Marxist,  in  the  movement  of  the  masses  which, 
with  or  without  him,  would  still  move.  His 
whole  faith  is  in  the  elemental  forces  that  move 
people,  his  faith  in  himself  is  merely  his  belief 
that  he  justly  estimates  the  direction  of  those 
forces.  He  does  not  believe  that  any  man  could 

122 


make  or  stop  the  revolution  which  he  thinks  inevi- 
table. If  the  Russian  revolution  fails,  according 
to  him,  it  fails  only  temporarily,  and  because  of 
forces  beyond  any  man's  control.  He  is  conse- 
quently free  with  a  freedom  no  other  great  man 
has  ever  had.  It  is  not  so  much  what  he  says 
that  inspires  confidence  in  him.  It  is  this  sen- 
sible freedom,  this  obvious  detachment.  With 
his  philosophy  he  cannot  for  a  moment  believe 
that  one  man's  mistake  might  ruin  all.  He  is, 
for  himself  at  any  rate,  the  exponent,  not  the 
cause,  of  the  events  that  will  be  for  ever  linked 
with  his  name. 


123 


THE  SUPREME  COUNCIL  OF  PUBLIC 
ECONOMY 

February  2oth. 

TO-DAY  was  an  unlucky  day.  I  felt  tired,  ill 
and  hungry,  and  had  arranged  to  talk  with  both 
Rykov,  the  President  of  the  Supreme  Council  of 
People's  Economy,  and  Krestinsky,  the  Commissar 
of  Finance,  at  such  awkward  times  that  I  got  no 
tea  and  could  get  nothing  to  eat  until  after  four 
o'clock.  Two  such  talks  on  an  empty  stomach 
(for  the  day  before  I  had  had  only  a  plate  of 
soup  and  a  little  scrap  of  fish)  were  a  little  too 
much  for  me,  and  I  fear  I  did  not  gather  as  much 
information  as  I  should  have  collected  under  bet- 
ter conditions. 

I  had  a  jolly  drive,  early  in  the  morning, 
through  the  Chinese  Town,  and  out  by  the  gate 
in  the  old  wall,  up  Myasnitzkaya  Street,  and 
round  to  the  right  to  a  building  that  used  to  be 

124 


the  Grand  Hotel  of  Siberia,  a  loathsome  place 
where  I  once  stayed.  Here  in  the  old  days  pro- 
vincial merchants  put  up,  who  did  not  mind  high 
prices  and  a  superfluity  of  bugs.  It  has  now  been 
turned  into  a  hive  of  office  work,  and  is  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Supreme  Council  of  Public  Econ- 
omy, which,  controlling  production  and  distribu- 
tion alike,  is  the  centre  of  the  constructive  work 
going  on  throughout  the  country. 

This  Council,  the  theorists  tell  me,  is  intended 
to  become  the  central  organization  of  the  state. 
The  Soviets  will  naturally  become  less  and  less 
important  as  instruments  of  political  transition 
as  that  transition  is  completed  and  the  struggle 
against  reaction  within  and  without  comes  to  an 
end.  Then  the  chief  business  of  the  state  will 
no  longer  be  to  protect  itself  against  enemies  but 
to  develop  its  economic  life,  to  increase  its  produc- 
tivity and  to  improve  the  material  conditions  of 
the  workers  of  whom  it  is  composed.  All  these 
tasks  are  those  of  the  Supreme  Council  of  Public 
Economy,  and  as  the  bitterness  of  the  struggle 
dies  away  this  body,  which  came  into  being  almost 
unnoticed  in  the  din  of  battle,  will  become  more 

125 


and  more  important  in  comparison  with  the  So- 
viets, which  were  in  origin  not  constructive  organ- 
izations but  the  instruments  of  a  revolution,  the 
hardest  stages  of  which  have  already  been  accom- 
plished. 

It  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  set  out  here  the 
constitution  of  this  Council.  It  is  considered  at 
present  as  the  economic  department  of  the  Ail- 
Russian  Central  Executive  Committee,  to  which, 
and  to  the  Council  of  People's  Commissaries,  it  is 
responsible.  It  regulates  all  production  and  dis- 
tribution. It  reports  on  the  various  estimates 
of  the  state  budget  and,  in  conjunction  with  the 
Commissariats  of  Finance  and  State  Control,  car- 
ries out  the  financing  of  all  branches  of  public 
economy.  It  consists  of  69  members,  and  is  com- 
posed as  follows: — Ten  representatives  from  the 
All-Russian  Executiye  Committee,  thirty  from  the 
All-Russian  Industrial  Productive  Union  (a  union 
of  Trade  Unions),  twenty  from  the  ten  District 
Councils  of  Public  Economy,  two  from  the  Ail- 
Russian  Council  of  Workers'  Co-operative  So- 
cieties, and  one  representative  each  from  the  Com- 
missariats of  Supply,  Ways  of  Communication, 

126 


Labour,  Agriculture,  Finance,  Trade  and  Indus- 
try, and  Internal  Affairs.  It  meets  as  a  whole  at 
least  once  in  every  month.  The  work  of  its  mem- 
bers is  directed  by  a  Prsesidium  of  nine  members, 
of  which  it  elects  eight,  the  President  being  elected 
by  the  All-Russian  Central  Executive  Commit- 
tee, and  enjoying  the  rank  of  a  People's  Commissar 
or  Minister. 

I  had  a  long  talk  with  Rykov,  the  President, 
or  rather  listened  to  a  long  lecture  by  him,  only 
now  and  then  succeeding  in  stopping  him  by  forc- 
ing a  question  into  the  thread  of  his  harangue. 
He  stammers  a  little,  and  talks  so  indistinctly 
that  for  the  first  time  (No.  The  first  time  was 
when  Chicherin  gabbled  through  the  provisions 
of  the  Brest  Treaty  at  the  fourth  All-Russian  As- 
sembly.) I  felt  willing  to  forgive  normal  Rus- 
sians, who  nearly  always  talk  as  if  they  were  in 
Petrograd  and  their  listener  in  Vladivostok. 

Part  of  what  he  said  is  embodied  in  what  I 
have  already  written.  But  besides  sketching  the 
general  aims  of  the  Council,  Rykov  talked  of  the 
present  economic  position  of  Russia.  At  the  mo- 
ment Russian  industry  was  in  peculiar  difficulties 

127 


owing  to  the  fuel  crisis.  This  was  partly  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  Czechs  and  the  Reactionaries, 
who  had  used  the  Czechs  to  screen  their  own 
organization,  had  control  of  the  coalfields  in  the 
Urals,  and  partly  to  the  fact  that  the  German 
occupation  of  the  Ukraine  and  the  activities  of 
Krasnov  had  cut  off  Soviet  Russia  from  the  Donetz 
coal  basin,  which  had  been  a  main  source  of  sup- 
ply, although  in  the  old  days  Petrograd  had  also 
got  coal  from  England.  It  was  now,  however, 
clear  that,  with  a  friendly  Ukraine,  they  would 
have  the  use  of  the  Donetz  basin  much  sooner  than 
they  had  expected. 

The  Brest  peace  and  the  deprivations  it  in- 
volved had  made  them  consider  the  position  of 
the  industrial  districts  from  a  new  standpoint, 
and  they  were  determined  to  make  Petrograd  and 
Moscow  as  far  as  possible  independent  of  all  fuel 
which  had  to  be  brought  from  a  distance.  He 
referred  to  the  works  in  progress  for  utilizing  wa- 
ter power  to  provide  electrical  energy  for  the 
Petrograd  factories,  and  said  that  similar  electrifi- 
cation, on  a  basis  of  turf  fuel,  is  planned  for  Mos- 
cow. 

128 


I  asked  how  they  were  going  to  get  the  machines. 
He  said  that  of  course  they  would  prefer  to  buy 
them  abroad,  but  that,  though  this  was  impossible, 
the  work  would  not  be  delayed  on  that  account, 
since  they  could  make  a  start  with  the  machines 
they  had.  Turbines  for  the  Petrograd  works  they 
still  hoped  to  obtain  from  abroad  when  peace  had 
been  arranged.  If  the  worst  came  to  the  worst 
he  thought  they  could  make  their  own.  "That 
is  one  unexpected  result  of  Russia's  long  isolation. 
Her  dependence  on  imports  from  abroad  is  lessen- 
ing." He  gave  an  example  in  salt,  the  urgent 
need  of  which  has  led  to  the  opening  of  a  new 
industry,  whose  resources  are  such  as  to  enable 
Russia  not  only  to  supply  herself  with  salt,  but 
the  rest  of  the  world  as  well  if  need  should  be. 

I  asked  what  were  their  immediate  plans  with 
regard  to  the  electrification  of  Moscow.  He  said 
that  there  was  no  water  power  near  Moscow  but 
big  turf  deposits  which  would  be  used  as  fuel. 
In  order  not  to  interfere  with  the  actual  lighting 
of  the  town  from  the  power-station  already  in 
existence,  they  are  taking  the  electric  plant  from 
the  Provodnik  works,  which  will  supply  enough 

129 


electricity  for  the  lighting  of  the  town.  As  soon 
as  that  is  set  up  and  working,  they  will  use  it 
for  the  immediate  needs  of  Moscow,  and  set  about 
transferring  the  existing  power-station  to  the  new 
situation  near  the  turf  beds.  In  this  way  they 
hope  to  carry  out  the  change  from  coal  to  turf 
without  interfering  with  the  ordinary  life  of  the 
town.  Eventually  when  things  settle  down  they 
will  get  a  larger  plant. 

I  said,  "Of  course  you  have  a  double  object  in 
this,  not  only  to  lessen  the  dependence  of  the  in- 
dustrial districts  on  fuel  that  has  to  be  brought 
from  a  distance,  and  of  which  you  may  be  de- 
prived, but  also  to  lessen  the  strain  on  transport*?" 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "Indeed  at  the  present  mo- 
ment the  latter  is  our  greatest  difficulty,  hamper- 
ing everything  we  would  wish  to  do.  And  trans- 
port we  cannot  put  right  without  help  from 
abroad.  Therefore  we  do  everything  we  can  to 
use  local  resources,  and  are  even  developing  the 
coal  deposits  near  Moscow,  which  are  of  inferior 
quality  to  the  Donetz  coal,  and  were  in  the  old 
days  purposely  smothered  by  the  Donetz  coal- 
owners,  who  wished  to  preserve  their  monopoly." 

130 


I  asked  him  if  in  his  opinion  Russia  could  organ- 
ize herself  without  help  from  abroad.  He  said, 
"I  rather  think  she  will  have  to.  We  want  steam 
dredgers,  steam  excavators,  and  locomotives  most 
of  all,  but  we  have  small  hope  of  getting  them  in 
the  immediate  future,  because  the  effects  of  the 
war  have  been  so  serious  in  the  disorganization 
of  industry  in  the  western  countries  that  it  is 
doubtful  whether  they  will  be  in  a  position  to 
supply  even  their  own  needs." 

While  we  were  talking  Berg,  the  secretary,  came 
in.  I  asked  him  how  his  Soviet  matches  were 
progressing,  and  he  said  that  the  labels  were  being 
printed  and  that  the  first  lot  would  soon  be  ready. 
They  will  be  distributed  on  the  card  system,  and 
he  had  calculated  that  they  could  sell  them  at 
twelve  kopecks  a  packet.  I  paid  a  rouble  for  a 
box  of  ordinary  matches  at  Bieloostrov,  and  a 
rouble  and  a  half  here. 


THE  RACE  WITH  RUIN 

AFTER  leaving  Rykov  I  went  to  see  Krestinsky, 
the  Commissar  of  Finance,  the  curious  little  op- 
timist whose  report  on  the  Extraordinary  Tax  I 
had  heard  at  the  last  meeting  of  the  Executive 
Committee.  I  found  him  in  the  Ilyinka  street, 
in  the  Chinese  town.  I  began  by  telling  him  that 
I  did  not  believe  that  they  meant  to  pay  the  loans. 
He  laughed  and  gave  me  precisely  the  answer  I 
had  expected : — "Of  course  we  hope  there  will  be 
a  revolution  in  other  countries,  in  which  case  they 
will  repudiate  their  debts  and  forgive  us  ours. 
But  if  that  does  not  happen  we  know  very  well 
that  we  shall  have  to  pay,  and  we  are  prepared 
to  pay,  and  shall  be  able  to  pay,  in  concessions, 
in  raw  material  which  they  need  more  than  they 
need  gold." 

Then,  being  myself  neither  an  economist  nor  a 
theoretical  socialist,  I  put  before  him  what  had 

132 


been  said  to  me  in  Stockholm  by  an  Englishman 
who  was  both  one  and  the  other;  namely,  that, 
being  isolated  from  European  finance,  the  Soviet 
Government  of  Russia  was  bound  to  come  to  an 
end  on  economic  and  financial  grounds  alone. 

He  said:  "That  would  certainly  be  so,  if  ris- 
ing prices,  rising  wages,  were  to  mean  indefinitely 
increased  demands  on  the  printing  machines  for 
paper  money.  But,  while  we  are  at  present  forced 
to  print  more  and  more  money,  another  process 
is  at  work  which,  in  the  long  run,  will  bring  this 
state  of  things  to  an  end.  Just  as  in  our  dealings 
with  other  countries  we  exchange  goods  instead  of 
paying  in  money,  so  within  our  own  frontiers 
money  is  ceasing  to  be  the  sole  medium  of  ex- 
change. Gradually  the  workmen  are  coming  to 
receive  more  and  more  in  other  forms  than  money. 
Houses,  for  example,  lighting  and  heating  are 

*»» 

only  a  beginning.  These  things  being  state  mo- 
nopolies, the  task  of  supplying  the  workman's 
needs  without  the  use  of  money  is  comparatively 
easy.  The  chief  difficulty  is,  of  course,  food  sup- 
plies, which  depend  on  our  ability  to  keep  up  an 
exchange  of  goods  with  the  villages.  If  we  can 

133 


supply  the  villages  with  manufactured  goods, 
they  will  supply  us  with  food.  You  can  fairly 
say  that  our  ruin  or  salvation  depends  on  a  race 
between  the  decreasing  value  of  money  (with  the 
consequent  need  for  printing  notes  in  ever  greater 
quantities)  and  our  growing  ability  to  do  without 
money  altogether.  That  is  of  course,  a  broad 
view,  and  you  must  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that 
we  expect  to  do  without  money  in  the  immediate 
future.  I  am  merely  showing  you  the  two  op- 
posing tendencies  on  which  our  economic  fate  de- 
pends." 

I  will  not  set  down  here  what  he  said  about  the 
Extraordinary  Tax,  for  it  was  merely  a  repetition 
of  what  I  had  heard  him  say  in  committee.  In 
connection  with  it,  however,  he  admitted  that 
capitalism  and  profiteering  were  hard  things  to 
root  out,  saying  that  they  had  great  difficulty  in 
getting  at  what  he  called  "the  new  bourgeoisie," 
namely  the  speculators  who  have  made  fortunes 
since  the  revolution  by  selling  scarce  food  products 
at  fantastic  prices.  It  was  difficult  to  tax  them 
because  they  carried  on  their  operations  secretly 
and  it  was  next  to  impossible  to  find  out  who  they 

134 


were.  They  did  not  bank  their  money,  and 
though  an  attempt  had  been  made  to  get  at  them 
through  the  house  committees,  it  was  found  that 
even  these  committees  were  unable  to  detect  them. 
They  will,  however,  be  made  to  disgorge  their 
ill-gotten  gains  when  the  measure  first  proposed 
by  Sokolnikov  last  summer  is  put  into  practice. 
This  is  a  general  exchange  of  new  money  for  old, 
after  which  the  old  will  be  declared  invalid. 
"Of  course,"  said  Krestinsky,  "they  will  cheat  in 
every  possible  way,  scattering  out  the  money 
among  a  number  of  friends  and  relations.  But 
something  will  have  been  done  in  cleaning  them 
up,  and  that  process  will  be  completed  by  a  sec- 
ond exchange  of  money  later  on." 

Fifteen  milliards  of  new  notes  for  the  first  ex- 
change are  already  printed,  but  they  think  that 
twenty  milliards  will  be  necessary. 

I  asked  if  the  new  money  was  better  looking 
than  the  old,  if  it  looked  more  like  money  that 
was  worth  having  than  the  wretched  little  notes 
printed  by  the  Provisional  Government  and  scorn- 
fully called  "Kerenkies"  by  the  populace.  Kres- 
tinsky said  he  was  afraid  not,  but  that  the  second 

135 


« 


and  final  exchange  would  be  made  in  notes  which 
they  expected  to  be  permanent.  They  did  not 
expect  the  notes  of  the  first  exchange  to  circulate 
abroad,  but  the  notes  of  the  second  would  carry 
with  them  state  obligation  and  they  expected  them 
to  go  into  general  currency.  He  added,  smiling, 
that  the  words  "Proletariat  of  all  lands,  unite," 
were  to  appear  on  the  notes  in  eight  languages. 
The  question  of  the  look  of  the  notes,  of  their 
ability  to  inspire  confidence  by  their  mere  appear- 
ance, is  of  real  importance  in  a  country  where  so 
many  of  the  peasantry  will  judge  their  value  by 
nothing  else. 

I  reminded  him  of  the  hostility  roused  in  some 
villages  by  mistakes  in  the  assessment  and  collect- 
ing of  the  Extraordinary  Tax,  mistakes  which  (so 
other  Communists  had  assured  me)  would  cost 
them  more,  politically,  than  the  tax  was  worth 
to  them,  and  asked  him,  "Will  you  not  have  great 
difficulty  in  getting  the  exchange  made,  and  are 
you  not  running  the  risk  of  providing  the  reaction- 
aries with  a  new  profitable  basis  of  agitation?" 

He  said  that  of  course  they  would  not  make 
the  attempt  unless  they  felt  sure  they  were  po- 

136 


litically  strong  enough  to  carry  it  through.  "If 
it  is  properly  explained  to  the  villages  there  will 
be  nothing  to  fear,  because  the  measure  will  not 
threaten  any  but  the  rich  and  therefore  the  small 
minority  of  the  peasantry.  It  would  be  a  differ- 
ent matter  if  the  same  thing  were  to  be  tried  by 
the  counter-revolutionaries,  because  they  would 
not  discriminate  in  favour  of  the  poor.  If  Kol- 
chak  and  Company  overthrow  us  and  try  to  sub- 
stitute their  money  for  ours,  their  action  would 
affect  rich  and  poor  alike,  minority  and  majority 
together.  If  there  were  not  a  hundred  other 
causes  guaranteeing  the  insecurity  of  their  posi- 
tion, the  fact  that  they  will  be  unable  to  get  rid 
of  our  money  without  rousing  ^.the  most  violent 
opposition  in  the  masses  throughout  the  country 
would  alone  be  sufficient  to  do  it." 

I  asked  whether  that  was  the  reason  why  they 
intended  to  print  on  the  notes  "Proletariat  of  all 
lands,  unite,"  so  that  the  counter-revolutionaries, 
unable  to  tolerate  money  bearing  that  hated 
phrase,  should  be  forced  to  a  step  disastrous  for 
themselves. 

He  laughed,  and  said  that  he  did  not  think 
137 


counter-revolution  in  the  least  likely  unless 
brought  in  by  invasion,  which  he  did  not  think 
politically  possible. 


138 


A  PLAY  OF  CHEKHOV 

February  2ist. 

I  SAW  Chekhov's  "Uncle  Vanya"  acted  by  the 
cast  of  the  Art  Theatre  in  the  First  Studio.  This 
is  a  little  theatre  holding  just  over  200  people. 
It  was  of  course  full.  It  was  curious  to  see  how 
complete  the  revolution  had  been  in  a  social  sense. 
It  was  impossible  to  tell  to  what  class  in  pre- 
revolutionary  days  any  particular  member  of  the 
audience  had  belonged.  I  was  struck  by  the  new 
smartness  of  the  boy  officers  of  the  Red  Army, 
of  whom  a  fair  number  were  present.  As  we 
waited  for  the  curtain  to  rise,  I  thought  how  the 
mental  attitude  of  the  people  had  changed.  A 
year  ago,  we  lived  with  exhilaration  or  despair  on 
a  volcano  which  might  any  day  erupt  and  sweep 
away  the  new  life  before  any  one  had  become 
accustomed  to  live  it.  Now  the  danger  to  the 
revolution  was  a  thousand  miles  away  on  the  va- 

139 


rious  fronts.  Here,  in  the  centre,  the  revolution 
was  an  established  fact.  People  had  ceased  to 
wonder  when  it  would  end,  were  settling  into 
their  places  in  the  new  social  order,  and  took  their 
pleasures  not  as  if  they  were  plucking  flowers  on 
their  way  to  execution,  but  in  the  ordinary  routine 
of  life. 

The  play  is  well  known,  a  drama  of  bourgeois 
society  in  a  small  country  place.  A  poor  land- 
owner scraping  money  for  an  elder  brother  in  the 
town,  realizing  at  last  that  the  brother  was  not  the 
genius  for  whom  such  sacrifice  was  worth  while; 
a  doctor  with  a  love  for  forestry  and  dreams  of 
the  future ;  the  old  mock-genius's  young  wife ;  his 
sister;  his  adoring  mother;  the  old  nurse  and  the 
ancient  dependent  adopted,  as  it  were,  with  the 
estate;  all  these  people  in  their  own  way  make 
each  other  suffer.  Chekhov's  irony  places  before 
us  wasted  lives,  hopelessness,  exaggerated  interest 
in  personalities,  vain  strugglings  after  some  better 
outlet  for  the  expression  of  selves  not  worth  ex- 
pressing. 

That  play,  acted  to-day,  seemed  as  remote  as  a 
play  of  the  old  regime  in  France  would  have 

140 


seemed  five  years  ago.  A  gulf  seemed  to  have 
passed.  The  play  had  become  a  play  of  historical 
interest;  the  life  it  represented  had  gone  for  ever. 
People  in  Russia  no  longer  have  time  for  private 
lives  of  such  a  character.  Such  people  no  longer 
exist ;  some  of  them  have  been  swept  into  the  flood- 
tide  of  revolution  and  are  working  as  they  never 
hoped  to  have  the  chance  to  work;  others,  less 
generous,  have  been  broken  and  thrown  aside. 
The  revolution  has  been  hard  on  some,  and  has 
given  new  life  to  others.  It  has  swept  away  that 
old  life  so  absolutely  that,  come  what  may,  it  will 
be  a  hundred  years  at  least  before  anywhere  in 
Russia  people  will  be  able  to  be  unhappy  in  that 
particular  way  again. 

The  subject  of  "Uncle  Vanya"  was  a  great  deal 
more  remote  from  the  Russian  audience  of  to-day 
than  was  the  opera  of  "Samson  and  Delilah" 
which  I  heard  last  week.  And,  if  I  realized  that 
the  revolution  had  come  to  stay,  if  I  realized 
that  Chekhov's  play  had  become  a  play  of  his- 
torical interest,  I  realized  also  that  Chekhov  was 
a  great  master  in  that  his  work  carried  across  the 
gulf  between  the  old  life  and  the  new,  and  affected 

141 


a  revolutionary  audience  of  to-day  as  strongly 
as  it  affected  that  very  different  audience  of  a  few 
years  ago.  Indeed,  the  play  seemed  almost  to 
have  gained  by  the  revolution,  which  had  lent  it, 
perhaps,  more  irony  than  was  in  Chekhov's  mind 
as  he  wrote.  Was  this  the  old  life1?  I  thought, 
as  I  stepped  out  into  the  snow.  If  so,  then  thank 
God  it  has  gone ! 


142 


THE  CENTRO-TEXTILE 

February  22nd. 

THIS  morning  I  drove  to  the  Dielovoi  Dvor,  the 
big  house  on  the  Varvarskaya  Square  which  is 
occupied  by  the  central  organization  of  the  textile 
industry.  The  head  of  this  organization  is  No- 
gin,  an  extremely  capable,  energetic  Russian,  so 
capable,  indeed,  that  I  found  it  hard  to  believe 
he  could  really  be  a  Russian.  He  is  a  big  man, 
with  a  mass  of  thick  brown  shaggy  hair,  so  thick 
that  the  little  bald  patch  on  the  top  of  his  head 
seems  like  an  artificial  tonsure.  Nogin  sketched 
the  lines  on  which  the  Russian  textile  industry  was 
being  reorganized,  and  gave  orders  that  I  should 
be  supplied  with  all  possible  printed  matter  in 
which  to  find  the  details. 

The  "Centro-Textile"  is  the  actual  centre  of 
the  economic  life  of  Russia,  because,  since  textiles 

H3 


are  the  chief  materials  of  exchange  between  the 
towns  and  the  villages,  on  its  success  depends  the 
success  of  everything  else.  The  textile  industry 
is,  in  any  case,  the  most  important  of  all  Russian 
industries.  Before  the  war  it  employed  500,000 
workmen,  and  Nogin  said  that  in  spite  of  the  dis- 
organization of  the  war  and  of  the  revolution 
400,000  are  employed  to-day.  This  may  be  so 
in  the  sense  that  400,000  are  receiving  pay,  but 
lack  of  fuel  or  of  raw  material  must  have  brought 
many  factories  to  a  standstill. 

All  the  big  factories  ha.ve  been  nationalized. 
Formerly,  although  in  any  one  town  there  might 
be  factories  carrying  out  all  the  different  processes, 
these  factories  belonged  to  different  owners.  A 
single  firm  or  bank  might  control  factories  scat- 
tered over  Russia  and,  so  that  the  whole  process 
should  be  in  its  hands,  the  raw  material  travelled 
from  factory  to  factory  through  the  country,  in- 
stead of  merely  moving  about  a  single  town. 
Xhus  a  roll  of  material  might  have  gone  through 
one  process  at  Jaroslav,  another  at  Moscow,  and 
a  third  at  Tula,  and  finally  come  back  to  Jaroslav 

144 


to  be  finished,  simply  because  the  different  fac- 
tories which  worked  upon  it,  though  widely  scat- 
tered, happened  'to  be  under  one  control.  Na- 
tionalization has  made  possible  the  rational  re- 
grouping of  factories  so  that  the  complete  process 
is  carried  out  in  one  place,  consequently  saving 
transport.  There  are  twenty-three  complete 
groups  of  this  kind,  and  in  the  textile  industry 
generally  about  fifty  groups  in  all. 

There  has  been  a  similar  concentration  of  con- 
trol. In  the  old  days  there  were  hundreds  of 
different  competitive  firms  with  their  buildings  and 
offices  in  the  Ilyinka,  the  Varvarka,  and  the  Ni- 
kolskaya.1  The  Chinese  town  1  was  a  mass  of 
little  offices  of  different  textile  firms.  The  whole 
of  that  mass  of  struggling  competitive  units  of 
direction  had  now  been  concentrated  in  the  house 
in  which  we  were  talking.  The  control  of  the 
workers  had  been  carried  through  in  such  a  way 
that  the  technical  experts  had  proper  weight. 
(See  p.  171.)  There  were  periodical  conferences 
of  elected  representatives  of  all  the  factories,  and 

1  Streets  and  a  district  in  Moscow. 
H5 


Nogin  believed  that  the  system  of  combined 
elective  workmen's  and  appointed  experts'  repre- 
sentation could  hardly  be  improved  upon. 

Nationalization  had  had  the  effect  of  standard- 
izing the  output.  Formerly,  an  infinite  variety  of 
slightly  different  stuffs  were  produced,  the  varia- 
tions being  often  merely  for  the  sake  of  being 
different  in  the  competitive  trade.  Useless  va- 
rieties had  now  been  done  away  with,  with  the 
result  of  greater  economy  in  production. 

I  asked  what  he  could  tell  me  about  their  diffi- 
culties in  the  matter  of  raw  material.  He  said 
they  no  longer  get  anything  from  America,  and 
while  the  railway  was  cut  at  Orenburg  by  the 
Cossacks,  they  naturally  could  get  no  cotton  from 
Turkestan.  In  fact,  last  autumn  they  had  cal- 
culated that  they  had  only  enough  material  to 
keep  the  factories  going  until  December.  Now 
they  found  they  could  certainly  keep  going  to  the 
end  of  March,  and  probably  longer.  Many  small 
factories,  wishing  to  make  their  cases  out  worse 
than  they  were,  had  under-estimated  their  stocks. 
Here,  as  in  other  things,  the  isolation  of  the  revo- 

146 


lution  had  the  effect  of  teaching  the  Russians  that 
they  were  less  dependent  upon  the  outside  world 
than  they  had  been  in  the  habit  of  supposing. 
He  asked  me  if  I  knew  it  had  been  considered 
impossible  to  combine  flax  and  cotton  in  such  a 
way  that  the  mixture  could  be  worked  in  machines 
intended  for  cotton  only.  They  had  an  infinite 
supply  of  flax,  much  of  which  in  the  old  days  had 
been  exported.  Investigations  carried  on  for  the 
Centre-Textile  by  two  professors,  the  brothers 
Chilikin,  had  ended  in  the  discovery  of  three  dif- 
ferent processes  for  the  cottonizing  of  flax  in  such 
a  way  that  they  could  now  mix  not  only  a  small 
percentage  of  their  flax  with  cotton  and  use  the 
old  machines,  but  were  actually  using  fifty  per 
cent,  flax  and  had  already  produced  material  ex- 
perimentally with  as  much  as  seventy-five  per 
cent. 

(Some  days  later  two  young  technicians  from 
the  Centro-Textile  brought  me  a  neatly  prepared 
set  of  specimens  illustrating  these  new  processes 
and  asked  me  to  bring  them  anything  of  the  same 
sort  from  England  in  return.  They  were  not 

*47 


Bolsheviks — were,  in  fact,  typical  non-politicals. 
They  were  pleased  with  what  the  Centre-Textile 
was  doing,  and  said  that  more  encouragement  was 
given  to  research  than  ever  formerly.  But  they 
were  very  despondent  about  the  economic  position. 
I  could  not  make  them  understand  why  Russia 
was  isolated,  and  that  I  might  be  unable  to  bring 
them  technical  books  from  England.) 

Nogin  rather  boastfully  said  that  the  western 
linen  industry  would  suffer  from  the  isolation  of 
Russia,  whereas  in  the  long  run  the  Russians  would 
be  able  to  do  without  the  rest  of  the  world.  With 
regard  to  wool,  they  would  have  no  difficulty  now 
that  they  were  again  united  with  a  friendly 
Ukraine.  The  silk  industry  was  to  be  developed 
in  the  Astrakhan  district  where  climatic  conditions 
are  particularly  favourable. 

I  asked  about  the  fate  of  the  old  textile  manu- 
facturers and  was  told  that  though  many  had  gone 
abroad  many  were  working  in  the  nationalized 
factories.  The  engineering  staff,  which  mostly 
struck  work  at  the  beginning  of  the  revolution, 
had  almost  without  exception  returned,  the 

148 


younger  engineers  in  particular  realizing  the  new 
possibilities  opening  before  the  industry,  the  con- 
tinual need  of  new  improvements,  and  the  imme- 
diate welcome  given  to  originality  of  any  kind. 
Apart  from  the  question  of  food,  which  was  bad 
for  everybody,  the  social  standard  of  the  work- 
ers had  risen.  Thus  one  of  their  immediate  diffi- 
culties was  the  provision  of  proper  houses.  The 
capitalists  and  manufacturers  kept  the  workers 
in  barracks.  "Now-a-days  the  men  want  better 
dwellings  and  we  mean  to  give  them  better. 
Some  have  moved  into  the  old  houses  of  the  own- 
ers and  manufacturers,  but  of  course  there  are  not 
enough  of  these  to  go  round,  and  we  have  exten- 
sive plans  in  the  way  of  building  villages  and 
garden  cities  for  the  workmen." 

I  asked  Nogin  what,  in  his  opinion,  was  most 
needed  by  Russia  from  abroad,  and  he  said  that 
as  far  as  the  textile  industries  were  concerned  they 
wanted  machinery.  Like  every  one  else  to  whom 
I  put  this  question,  he  said  that  every  industry 
in  Russia  would  be  in  a  better  position  if  only 
they  had  more  locomotives.  "Some  of  our  fac- 

149 


tories  are  stopping  now  for  lack  of  fuel,  and  at 
Saratov,  for  example,  we  have  masses  of  raw  ma- 
terial which  we  are  unable  to  get  to  Moscow." 


150 


IN  the  afternoon  I  met  Sereda,  the  Commissar  of 
Agriculture.  He  insisted  that  the  agrarian  pol- 
icy had  been  much  misrepresented  by  their  enemies 
for  the  purposes  of  agitation.  They  had  no  in- 
tention of  any  such  idiocy  as  the  attempt  to  force 
the  peasants  to  give  up  private  ownership.  The 
establishment  of  communes  was  not  to  be  com- 
pulsory in  any  way;  it  was  to  be  an  illustrative 
means  of  propaganda  of  the  idea  of  communal 
work,  not  more.  The  main  task  before  them  was 
to  raise  the  standard  of  Russian  agriculture,  which 
under  the  old  system  was  extremely  low.  By 
working  many  of  the  old  estates  on  a  communal 
system  with  the  best  possible  methods  they  hoped 
to  do  two  things  at  once:  to  teach  the  peasant  to 
realize  the  advantages  of  communal  labour,  and 
to  show  him  that  he  could  himself  get  a  very 


great  deal  more  out  of  his  land  than  he  docs. 
"In  other  ways  also  we  are  doing  everything  we 
can  to  give  direct  help  to  the  small  agriculturists. 
We  have  mobilized  all  the  agricultural  experts  in 
the  country.  We  are  issuing  a  mass  of  simply 
written  pamphlets  explaining  better  methods  of 
farming." 

(I  have  seen  scores  of  these  pamphlets  on  for- 
estry, potatoes,  turf,  rotation  of  crops,  and  so  on, 
besides  the  agricultural  journals  issued  by  the 
Commissariat  and  sent  in  large  quantities  to  the 
villages.) 

I  told  Sereda  I  had  heard  that  the  peasants 
were  refusing  to  sow  more  than  they  wanted  for 
their  own  needs.  He  said  that  on  the  contrary 
the  latest  reports  gave  them  the  right  to  hope  for 
a  greater  sown  area  this  year  than  ever  before,  and 
that  even  more  would  have  been  sown  if  Den- 
mark had  not  been  prevented  from  letting  them 
have  the  seed  for  which  they  had  actually  paid. 
I  put  the  same  question  to  him  that  I  put  to  Nogin 
as  to  what  they  most  needed;  he  replied,  "Trac- 
tors." 


152 


FOREIGN  TRADE  AND  MUNITIONS 
OF  WAR 

February  25th. 

I  HAD  a  talk  in  the  Metropole  with  Krasin,  who 
is  Commissar  for  Trade  and-  Industry  and  also 
President  of  the  Committee  for  Supplying  the 
Needs  of  the  Army.  He  had  disapproved  of  the 
November  Revolution,  but  last  year,  when  things 
looked  like  going  badly,  he  came  to  Russia  from 
Stockholm  feeling  that  he  could  not  do  otherwise 
than  help.  He  is  an  elderly  man,  an  engineer, 
and  very  much  of  a  European.  We  talked  first 
of  the  Russian  plans  with  regard  to  foreign  trade. 
All  foreign  trade,  he  said,  is  now  concentrated  in 
the  hands  of  the  State,  which  is  therefore  able  to 
deal  as  a  single  customer.  I  asked  how  that 
would  apply  to  purchase,  and  whether  they  ex- 
pected that  countries  dealing  with  them  would 
organize  committees  through  which  the  whole 

153 


Russian  trade  of  each  such  country  should  simi- 
larly pass.  Krasin  said,  "Of  course  that  would 
be  preferable,  but  only  in  the  case  of  socialist 
countries.  As  things  are  now  it  would  be  very 
much  to  our  disadvantage.  It  is  better  for  us  to 
deal  with  individual  capitalists  than  with  a  ring. 
The  formation  of  a  committee  in  England,  for 
example,  with  a  monopoly  of  trade  with  Russia, 
would  have  the  effect  of  raising  prices  against  us, 
since  we  could  no  longer  go  from  a  dear  shop  to 
a  cheaper  one.  Besides,  as  socialists  we  naturally 
wish  to  do  nothing  to  help  in  the  trustification  of 
English  manufacturers." 

He  recognized  that  foreign  trade  on  any  large 
scale  was  impossible  until  their  transport  had 
been  improved.  Russia  proposed  to  do  her  pay- 
ing in  raw  material,  in  flax,  timber,  etc.,  in  ma- 
terials of  which  she  had  great  quantities  although 
she  could  not  bring  them  to  the  ports  until  her 
transport  should  be  restored.  It  would,  there- 
fore, be  in  the  foreigner's  own  interests  to  help 
them  in  this  matter.  He  added  that  they  were 
confident  that  in  the  long  run  they  could,  without 
foreign  help,  so  far  restore  their  transport  as  to 

154 


save  themselves  from  starvation ;  but  for  a  speedy 
return  to  normal  conditions  foreign  help  was  es- 
sential. 

The  other  question  we  touched  was  that  of  mu- 
nitions. I  expressed  some  surprise  that  they 
should  be  able  to  do  so  well  although  cut  off  from 
the  west.  Krasin  said  that  as  far  as  that  was 
concerned  they  had  ample  munitions  for  a  long 
fight.  Heavy  artillery  is  not  much  use  for  the 
kind  of  warfare  waged  in  Russia;  and  as  for  light 
artillery,  they  were  making  and  mending  their 
own.  They  were  not  bothering  with  three-inch 
shells  because  they  had  found  that  the  old  regime 
had  left  scattered  about  Russia  supplies  of  three- 
inch  shells  sufficient  to  last  them  several  years. 
Dynamite  also  they  had  in  enormous  quantities. 
They  were  manufacturing  gunpowder.  The  car- 
tridge output  had  trebled  since  August  when  Kra- 
sin's  committee  was  formed.  He  thought  even 
as  things  were  they  could  certainly  fight  for  a 
year. 


•155 


THE  PROPOSED  DELEGATION  FROM 
BERNE 

I  DO  not  remember  the  exact  date  when  the  pro- 
posal of  the  Berne  International  Conference  to 
send  a  Commission  of  Enquiry  to  Russia  became 
known  in  Moscow,  but  on  February  2oth  every- 
body who  came  to  see  me  was  talking  about  it, 
and  from  that  date  the  question  as  to  the  reception 
of  the  delegates  was  the  most  urgently  debated 
of  all  political  subjects.  Chicherin  had  replied 
immediately  to  Berne,  saying  that  "though  they 
did  not  consider  the  Berne  Conference  either  so- 
cialist or  in  any  degree  representative  of  the  work- 
ing-class they  nevertheless  would  permit  the  Com- 
mission's journey  into  Russia,  and  would  give  it 
every  opportunity  of  becoming  acquainted  from 
all  sides  with  the  state  of  affairs,  just  as  they 
would  any  bourgeois  commission  directly  or  in- 
directly connected  with  any  of  the  bourgeois  gov- 

156 


ernments,  even  with  those  then  attacking  Russia." 
It  may  well  be  imagined  that  a  reply  in  this 
style  infuriated  the  Mensheviks  who  consider 
themselves  more  or  less  affiliated  to  the  parties 
•epresented  at  Berne.  What,  they  shrieked,  Kaut- 
sky  not  a  socialist1?  To  which  their  opponents 
replied,  "The  Government  which  Kautsky  sup- 
ports keeps  Radek  in  irons  in  a  gaol."  But  to 
me  the  most  interesting  thing  to  observe  was  that 
Chicherin's  reply  was  scarcely  more  satisfactory 
to  some  of  the  Communists.  It  had  been  sent  off 
before  any  general  consultation,  and  it  appeared 
that  the  Communists  themselves  were  widely  di- 
vided as  to  the  meaning  of  the  proposal.  One 
party  believed  that  it  was  a  first  step  towards 
agreement  and  peace.  The  other  thought  it  an 
ingenious  ruse  by  Clemenceau  to  get  "so-called" 
socialist  condemnation  of  the  Bolsheviks  as  a  basis 
for  allied  intervention.  Both  parties  were,  of 
course,  wrong  in  so  far  as  they  thought  the  Allied 
Governments  had  anything  to  do  with  it.  Both 
the  French  and  English  delegates  were  refused 
passports.  This,  however,  was  not  known  in 
Moscow  until  after  I  left,  and  by  then  much  had 

157 


happened.  I  think  the  Conference  which  founded 
the  Third  International  in  Moscow  had  its  origin 
in  a  desire  to  counter  any  ill  effects  that  might 
result  from  the  expected  visit  of  the  people  of 
Berne. 

Litvinov  said  he  considered  the  sending  of  the 
Commission  from  Berne  the  most  dangerous 
weapon  yet  conceived  by  their  opponents.  He 
complained  that  he  had  been  unable  to  get  either 
Lenin  or  Chicherin  to  realize  that  this  delegation 
was  a  preparation  for  hostilities,  not  a  prepara- 
tion for  peace.  "You  do  not  understand  that 
since  the  beginning  of  the  war  there  has  been  a 
violent  struggle  between  two  Internationals,  one 
of  which  does  not  believe  in  revolution  while  the 
other  does.  In  this  case  a  group  of  men  already 
committed  to  condemn  the  revolution  are  com- 
ing to  pass  judgment  on  it.  If  they  were  not  to 
condemn  the  revolution  they  would  be  condemn- 
ing themselves.  Chicherin  ought  to  have  put  a 
condition  that  a  delegation  of  Left  Socialists 
should  also  come.  But  he  replied  within  an  hour 
of  getting  the  telegram  from  Berne.  These  idiots 
here  think  the  delegation  is  coming  to  seek  a 

158 


ground  for  peace.  It  is  nothing  of  the  sort.  It 
is  bound  to  condemn  us,  and  the  Bourgeois  Gov- 
ernments will  know  how  to  profit  by  the  criticism, 
however  mild,  that  is  signed  by  men  who  still  re- 
tain authority  as  socialists.  Henderson,  for  ex- 
ample (Henderson  was  at  first  named  as  one  of 
the  delegates,  later  replaced  by  MacDonald),  will 
judge  simply  by  whether  people  are  hungry  or 
not.  He  will  not  allow  for  reasons  which  are  not 
in  our  control.  Kautsky  is  less  dangerous,  be- 
cause, after  all,  he  will  look  below  the  obvious." 
Reinstein  remembered  the  old  personal  hostility 
between  Lenin  and  Kautsky,  whom  Lenin,  in  a 
book  which  Reinstein  thought  unworthy  of  him, 
had  roundly  denounced  as  a  renegade  and  traitor. 
The  only  man  in  the  delegation  who  could  be 
counted  on  for  an  honest  effort  to  understand  was 
Longuet. 

As  the  days  went  on,  it  became  clear  that  the 
expected  visit  had  provided  a  new  bone  of  conten- 
tion between  the  Russian  parties.  The  Com- 
munists decided  that  the  delegates  should  not  be 
treated  with  any  particular  honour  in  the  way  of 
a  reception.  The  Mensheviks  at  once  set  about 

159 


preparing  a  triumphal  reception  on  a  large  scale 
for  the  people  whom  they  described  as  the  repre- 
sentatives of  genuine  socialism.  Demian  Biedny 
retorted  in  an  extremely  amusing  poetic  dialogue, 
representing  the  Mensheviks  rehearsing  their  parts 
to  be  ready  for  the  reception.  Other  Communists 
went  to  work  to  prepare  a  retort  of  a  different 
kind.  They  arranged  a  house  for  the  Berne  dele- 
gates to  live  in,  but  at  the  same  time  they  pre- 
pared to  emphasize  the  difference  between  the  two 
Internationals  by  the  calling  of  an  anti-Berne  con- 
ference which  should  disclaim  all  connection  with 
that  old  International  which  they  considered  had 
gone  into  political  bankruptcy  at  the  outbreak  of 
the  European  war. 


160 


THE  EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE  ON 
THE  RIVAL  PARTIES 

February  26th. 

IN  the  afternoon  I  got  to  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee in  time  to  hear  the  end  of  a  report  by 
Rykov  on  the  economic  position.  He  said  there 
was  hope  for  a  satisfactory  conclusion  to  the  ne- 
gotiations for  the  building  of  the  Obi-Kotlas  rail- 
way, and  hoped  that  this  would  soon  be  followed 
by  similar  negotiations  and  by  other  concessions. 
He  explained  that  they  did  not  want  capitalism 
in  Russia  but  that  they  did  want  the  things  that 
capital  could  give  them  in  exchange  for  what  they 
could  give  capital.  This  was,  of  course,  referring 
to  the  opposition  criticism  that  the  Soviet  was 
prepared  to  sell  Russia  into  the  hands  of  the 
"Anglo-American  Imperialistic  bandits."  Rykov 
said  that  the  main  condition  of  all  concessions 
would  be  that  they  should  not  effect  the  interna- 

161 


tional  structure  of  the  Soviet  Republic  and  should 
not  lead  to  the  exploitation  of  the  workmen. 
They  wanted  railways,  locomotives,  and  machines, 
and  their  country  was  rich  enough  to  pay  for  these 
things  out  of  its  natural  resources  without  sensible 
loss  to  the  state  or  the  yielding  of  an  inch  in  their 
programme  of  internal  reconstruction. 

He  was  followed  by  Krestinsky,  who  pointed 
out  that  whereas  the  commissariats  were,  in  a 
sense,  altered  forms  of  the  old  ministries,  links 
with  the  past,  the  Council  of  Public  Economy, 
organizing  the  whole  production  and  distribution 
of  the  country,  building  the  new  socialist  state, 
was  an  entirely  new  organ  and  a  link,  not  with  the 
past,  but  with  the  future. 

The  two  next  speeches  illustrated  one  of  the 
main  difficulties  of  the  revolution.  Krasin  (see 
p.  153)  criticized  the  council  for  insufficient  con- 
fidence in  the  security  of  the  revolution.  He  said 
they  were  still  hampered  by  fears  lest  here  or 
there  capitalism  should  creep  in  again.  They 
were  unnecessarily  afraid  to  make  the  fullest  pos- 
sible use  of  specialists  of  all  kinds  who  had  taken 
.  a  leading  part  in  industry  under  the  old  regime 

162 


and  who,  now  that  the  old  regime,  the  old  system, 
had  been  definitely  broken,  could  be  made  to  serve 
the  new.  He  believed  that  unless  the  utmost  use 
was  made  of  the  resources  of  the  country  in  tech- 
nical knowledge,  etc.,  they  could  not  hope  to  or- 
ganize the  maximum  productivity  which  alone 
could  save  them  from  catastrophe. 

The  speaker  who  followed  him,  Glebov,  de- 
fended precisely  the  opposite  point  of  view  and 
represented  the  same  attitude  with  regard  to  the 
re-organization  of  industry  as  is  held  by  many 
who  object  to  Trotsky's  use  of  officers  of  the  old 
army  in  the  re-organization  of  the  new,  believing 
that  all  who  worked  in  high  places  under  the  old 
regime  must  be  and  remain  enemies  of  the  revo- 
lution, so  that  their  employment  is  a  definite  source 
of  danger.  Glebov  is  a  trade  union  representa- 
tive, and  his  speech  was  a  clear  indication  of  the 
non-political  undercurrent  towards  the  left  which 
may  shake  the  Bolshevik  position  and  will  most 
certainly  come  into  violent  conflict  with  any  defi- 
nitely bourgeois  government  that  may  be  brought 
in  by  counter-revolution. 

In  the  resolution  on  the  economic  position  which 
163 


was  finally  passed  unanimously,  one  point  reads 
as  follows:  "It  is  necessary  to  strive  for  just 
economic  relations  with  other  countries  in  the  form 
of  state  regulated  exchange  of  goods  and  the  bring- 
ing of  the  productive  forces  of  other  countries  to 
the  working  out  of  the  untouched  natural  resources 
of  Soviet  Russia."  It  is  interesting  to  notice  the 
curiously  mixed  character  of  the  opposition. 
Some  call  for  "a  real  socialism,"  which  shall  make 
no  concessions  whatsoever  to  foreign  capital, 
others  for  the  cessation  of  civil  war  and  peace  with 
the  little  governments  which  have  obtained  Allied 
support.  In  a  single  number  of  the  Printers1 
Gazette,  for  example,  there  was  a  threat  to  appeal 
against  the  Bolsheviks  to  the  delegation  from 
Berne  and  an  attack  on  Chicherin  for  being  ready 
to  make  terms  with  the  Entente. 

The  next  business  on  the  programme  was  the 
attitude  to  be  adopted  towards  the  repentant  So- 
cial Revolutionaries  of  the  Right.  Kamenev 
made  the  best  speech  I  have  ever  heard  from  him, 
for  once  in  a  way  not  letting  himself  be  drawn 
into  agitational  digressions,  but  going  point  by 
point  through  what  he  had  to  say  and  saying  it 

164 


economically.  The  S.R.'s  had  had  three  watch- 
words: "War  and  alliance  with  the  Allies," 
"Coalition  with  the  bourgeoisie,"  and  "The  Con- 
stituent Assembly."  For  over  a  year  they  had 
waged  open  war  with  the  Soviet  Government  over 
these  three  points.  They  had  been  defeated  in 
the  field.  But  they  had  suffered  a  far  more  se- 
rious moral  defeat  in  having  to  confess  that  their 
very  watchwords  had  been  unsound.  "War  and 
Alliance  with  the  Allies"  had  shown  itself  to  mean 
the  occupation  of  Russian  territory  by  foreign 
troops  in  no  way  concerned  to  save  the  revolution, 
but  ready,  as  they  had  shown,  to  help  every  force 
that  was  working  for  its  suppression.  "Coalition 
with  the  Bourgeoisie"  had  shown  itself  to  be  a  path 
the  natural  ending  to  which  was  the  dictatorship 
of  the  bourgeoisie  through  military  force.  "The 
Constituent  Assembly"  had  been  proved  to  be  no 
more  than  a  useful  mask  behind  which  the  enemies 
of  the  revolution  could  prepare  their  forces  and 
trick  the  masses  to  their  own  undoing. 

He  read  the  declaration  of  the  Right  Social 
Revolutionaries,  admitting  that  the  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment was  the  only  force  working  against  a 

165 


dictatorship  of  the  bourgeoisie,  and  calling  upon 
their  troops  to  overthrow  the  usurping  govern- 
ments in  Siberia,  and  elsewhere.  This  repentance, 
however,  had  come  rather  late  and  there  were  those 
who  did  not  share  it.  He  said  finally  that  the 
Executive  Committee  must  remember  that  it  was 
not  a  party  considering  its  relations  with  another 
party,  but  an  organ  of  government  considering  the 
attitude  of  the  country  towards  a  party  which  in 
the  most  serious  moment  of  Russian  history  had 
admittedly  made  grave  mistakes  and  helped  Rus- 
sia's enemies.  Now,  in  this  difficult  moment, 
every  one  who  was  sincerely  ready  to  help  the 
working  masses  of  Russia  in  their  struggle  had  the 
right  to  be  given  a  place  in  the  ranks  of  the  fight- 
ers. The  Social  Revolutionaries  should  be  al- 
lowed to  prove  in  deeds  the  sincerity  of  their  re- 
cantation. The  resolution  which  was  passed  re- 
capitulated the  recantations,  mentioned  by  name 
the  members  of  the  party  with  whom  discussions 
had  been  carried  on,  withdrew  the  decision  of 
June  14th  (excluding  the  S.R.'s  from  the  Exec- 
utive Committee  on  the  ground  of  their  counter- 
revolutionary tendencies)  with  regard  to  all  groups 

166 


of  the  party  which  held  themselves  bound  by  the 
recently  published  declarations,  gave  them  the 
right  equally  with  other  parties  to  share  in  the 
work  of  the  Soviets,  and  notified  the  administra- 
tive and  judicial  organs  of  the  Republic  to  free 
the  arrested  S.R.'s  who  shared  the  point  of  view 
expressed  in  the  recantations.  The  resolution  was 
passed  without  enthusiasm  but  without  opposi- 
tion. 

There  followed  the  reading  by  Avanesov  of  the 
decree  concerning  the  Menshevik  paper  Vsegda 
Vpered  ("Forever  Forward,"  but  usually  de- 
scribed by  critics  of  the  Mensheviks  as  "Forever 
Backward").  The  resolution  pointed  out  that  in 
spite  of  the  Mensheviks  having  agreed  on  the  need 
of  supporting  the  Soviet  Government  they  were 
actually  carrying  on  an  agitation,  the  effect  of 
which  could  only  be  to  weaken  the  army.  An 
example  was  given  of  an  article,  "Stop  the  Civil 
War,"  in  which  they  had  pointed  out  that  the 
war  was  costing  a  great  deal,  and  that  much  of 
the  food  supplies  went  to  the  army.  On  these 
grounds  they  had  demanded  the  cessation  of  the 
civil  war.  The  Committee  pointed  out  that  the 

167 


Mensheviks  were  making  demagogic  use  of  the 
difficulties  of  the  food  supply,  due  in  part  to  the 
long  isolation  from  the  Ukraine,  the  Volga  dis- 
trict and  Siberia,  for  which  those  Mensheviks  who 
had  worked  with  the  White  Guard  were  them- 
selves partly  responsible.  They  pointed  out  that 
Russia  was  a  camp  besieged  from  all  sides,  that 
Kolchak  had  seized  the  important  centre  of  Perm, 
that  Petrograd  was  threatened  from  Finland,  that 
in  the  streets  of  Rostov  and  Novo  Tcherkassk 
gallows  with  the  bodies  of  workmen  were  still 
standing,  that  Denikin  was  making  a  destructive 
raid  in  the  northern  Caucasus,  that  the  Polish 
legionaries  were  working  for  the  seizure  of  Vilna 
and  the  suppression  of  Lithuania  and  the  White 
Russian  proletariat,  and  that  in  the  ports  of  the 
Black  Sea  the  least  civilized  colonial  troops  of  the 
Entente  were  supporting  the  White  Guards. 
They  pointed  out  that  the  Soviet  Government  had 
offered  concessions  in  order  to  buy  off  the  impe- 
rialistic countries  and  had  received  no  reply. 
Taking  all  this  into  consideration  the  demand  to 
end  civil  war  amounted  to  a  demand  for  the  dis- 
arming of  the  working  class  and  the  poor  peasantry 

168 


in  the  face  of  bandits  and  executioners  advancing 
from  all  sides.  In  a  word,  it  was  the  worst  form 
of  state  crime,  namely,  treason  to  a  state  of  work- 
ers and  peasants.  The  Committee  considered  use- 
ful every  kind  of  practical  criticism  of  the  work 
of  the  Soviet  Government  in  all  departments,  but 
it  could  not  allow  that  in  the  rear  of  the  Red 
Army  of  workers  and  peasants,  under  that  army's 
protection,  should  be  carried  on  unrestrained  an 
agitation  which  could  have  only  one  result,  the 
weakening  of  Soviet  Russia  in  the  face  of  its 
many  enemies.  Therefore  Vsegda  Vpered  would 
be  closed  until  the  Mensheviks  should  show  in 
deed  that  they  were  ready  to  stand  to  the  defence 
and  support  of  the  revolution.  At  the  same  time, 
the  Committee  reminded  the  Mensheviks  that  a 
continuation  of  their  counter-revolutionary  work 
would  force  the  Soviet  Government  "to  expel  them 
to  the  territories  of  Kolchak's  democracy."  This 
conclusion  was  greeted  with  laughter  and  ap- 
plause, and  with  that  the  meeting  ended. 


169 


COMMISSARIAT  OF  LABOUR 

February  28th. 

THIS  morning  I  went  round  to  the  Commissariat 
of  Labour,  to  see  Schmidt,  the  Commissar. 
Schmidt  is  a  clean-shaven,  intelligent  young  man, 
whose  attention  to  business  methods  is  reflected 
in  his  Commissariat,  which,  unlike  that  of  For- 
eign Affairs,  is  extremely  clean  and  very  well 
organized.  I  told  him  I  was  particularly  inter- 
ested to  hear  what  he  could  say  in  answer  to  the 
accusations  made  both  by  the  Mensheviks  and  by 
the  Extremists  on  the  Left  that  control  by  the 
workers  has  become  a  dead  letter,  and  that  a 
time  will  come  when  the  trades  unions  will  move 
against  the  state  organizations. 

Schmidt  answered:  "Those  accusations  and 
suggestions  are  all  very  well  for  agitational  pur- 
poses, but  the  first  to  laugh  at  them  would  be  the 
trades  unions  themselves.  This  Commissariat, 

170 


for  example,  which  is  the  actual  labour  centre,  is 
controlled  directly  by  the  unions.  As  Commissar 
of  Labour,  I  was  elected  directly  by  the  General 
Council  of  the  Trades  Unions.  Of  the  College 
of  nine  members  which  controls  the  whole  work 
of  the  Commissariat,  five  are  elected  directly  by 
the  General  Council  of  the  Trades  Unions  and 
four  appointed  by  the  Council  of  People's  Com- 
missaries, thus  giving  the  Unions  a  decisive  ma- 
jority in  all  questions  concerning  labour.  All 
nine  are  confirmed  by  the  Council  of  People's  Com- 
missaries, representing  the  state  as  a  whole,  and 
the  Commissar  is  confirmed  by  the  All-Russian 
Executive  Committee." 

Of  course  control  by  the  workers,  as  it  was  first 
introduced,  led  speedily  to  many  absurdities  and, 
much  to  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  extremer  ele- 
ments, has  been  considerably  modified.  It  was 
realized  that  the  workers  in  any  particular  fac- 
tory might  by  considering  only  their  own  inter- 
ests harm  the  community  as  a  whole,  and  so,  in 
the  long  run,  themselves.  The  manner  of  its 
modification  is  an  interesting  example  of  the  way 
in  which,  without  the  influence  of  tanks,  a'fro- 

171 


planes  or  bayonets,  the  cruder  ideas  of  communism 
are  being  modified  by  life.  It  was  reasoned  that 
since  the  factory  was  the  property,  not  of  the  par- 
ticular workmen  who  work  in  it,  but  of  the  com- 
munity as  a  whole,  the  community  as  a  whole 
should  have  a  considerable  voice  in  its  manage- 
ment. And  the  effect  of  that  reasoning  has  been 
to  ensure  that  the  technical  specialist  and  the 
expert  works  manager  are  no  longer  at  the  caprice 
of  a  hastily  called  gathering  of  the  workmen  who 
may,  without  understanding  them,  happen  to  dis- 
approve of  some  of  their  dispositions.  Thus  the 
economical,  administrative  council  of  a  national- 
ized factory  consists  of  representatives  of  the 
workmen  and  clerical  staff,  representatives  of  the 
higher  technical  and  commercial  staffs,  the  di- 
rectors of  the  factory  (who  are  appointed  by  the 
Central  Direction  of  National  Factories),  repre- 
sentatives of  the  local  council  of  trades  unions, 
the  Council  of  Public  Economy,  the  local  soviet, 
and  the  industrial  union  of  the  particular  indus- 
try carried  on  in  the  factory,  together  with  a  rep- 
resentative of  the  workers'  co-operative  society 
and  a  representative  of  the  peasants'  soviet  of  the 

172 


district  in  which  the  factory  is  situated.  In  this 
council  not  more  than  half  of  the  members  may 
be  representatives  of  the  workmen  and  clerical 
staff  of  the  factory.  This  council  considers  the 
internal  order  of  the  factory,  complaints  of  any 
kind,  and  the  material  and  moral  conditions  of 
work  and  so  on.  On  questions  of  a  technical  char- 
acter it  has  no  right  to  do  more  than  give  advice. 
The  night  before  I  saw  Schmidt,  little  Finberg 
had  come  to  my  room  for  a  game  of  chess  in  a 
very  perturbed  state  of  mind,  having  just  come 
from  a  meeting  of  the  union  to  which  he  belonged 
(the  union  of  clerks,  shop  assistants  and  civil 
servants)  where  there  had  been  a  majority  against 
the  Bolsheviks  after  some  fierce  criticism  over  this 
particular  question.  Finberg  had  said  that  the 
ground  basis  of  the  discontent  had  been  the  lack 
of  food,  but  that  the  outspoken  criticism  had  taken 
the  form,  first,  of  protests  against  the  offer  of 
concessions  in  Chicherin's  Note  of  February  4th, 
on  the  ground  that  concessions  meant  concessions 
to  foreign  capitalism  and  the  formation  in  Rus- 
sia of  capitalist  centres  which  would  eventually 
spread;  and  second,  that  the  Communists  them- 

173 


selves,  by  their  modifications  of  Workers'  Control, 
were  introducing  State  Capitalism  instead  of  So- 
cialism. 

I  mentioned  this  union  to  Schmidt,  and  asked 
him  to  explain  its  hostility.  He  laughed,  and 
said:  "Firstly,  that  union  is  not  an  industrial 
union  at  all,  but  includes  precisely  the  people 
whose  interests  are  not  identical  with  those  of  the 
workmen.  Secondly,  it  includes  all  the  old  civil 
servants  who,  as  you  remember,  left  the  ministries 
at  the  November  Revolution,  in  many  cases  tak- 
ing the  money  with  them.  They  came  back  in 
the  end,  but  though  no  longer  ready  to  work 
openly  against  the  revolution  as  a  whole,  they  re- 
tain much  of  their  old  dislike  of  us,  and,  as  you  . 
see,  the  things  they  were  objecting  to  last  night 
were  precisely  the  things  which  do  not  concern 
them  in  particular.  Any  other  stick  would  be 
as  good  to  them.  They  know  well  that  if  they 
were  to  go  on  strike  now  they  would  be  a  nuisance 
to  us,  no  more.  If  you  wish  to  know  the  attitude 
of  the  Trades  Unions,  you  should  look  at  the 
Trades  Union  Congress  which  wholly  supported 
us,  and  gave  a  very  different  picture  of  affairs. 

174 


They  know  well  that  in  all  questions  of  labour, 
the  trades  unions  have  the  decisive  voice.  I  told 
you  that  the  unions  send  a  majority  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  College  which  controls  the  work  of 
this  Commissariat.  I  should  have  added  that  the 
three  most  important  departments — the  depart- 
ment for  safeguarding  labour,  the  department  for 
distributing  labour,  and  that  for  regulating  wages 
— are  entirely  controlled  by  the  Unions." 
"How  do  politics  affect  the  Commissariat'?" 
"Not  at  all.  Politics  do  not  count  with  us, 
just  because  we  are  directly  controlled  by  the 
Unions,  and  not  by  any  political  party.  Men- 
sheviks,  Maximalists  and  others  have  worked  and 
are  working  in  the  Commissariat.  Of  course  if 
a  man  were  opposed  to  the  revolution  as  a  whole 
we  should  not  have  him  here,  because  he  would 
be  working  against  us  instead  of  helping." 

I  asked  whether  he  thought  the  trade  unions 
would  ever  disappear  in  the  Soviet  organizations. 
He  thought  not.  On  the  contrary,  they  had 
grown  steadily  throughout  the  revolution.  He 
told  me  that  one  great  change  had  been  made  in 
them.  Trade  unions  have  been  merged  together 

175 


into  industrial  unions,  to  prevent  conflict  between 
individual  sections  of  one  industry.  Thus  boiler- 
makers  and  smiths  do  not  have  separate  unions, 
but  are  united  in  the  metal-workers'  union.  This 
unification  has  its  effect  on  reforms  and  changes. 
An  increase  in  wages,  for  example,  is  simultaneous 
all  over  Russia.  The  price  of  living  varies  very 
considerably  in  different  parts  of  the  country, 
there  being  as  great  differences  between  the  cli- 
mates of  different  parts  as  there  are  between  the 
countries  of  Europe.  Consequently  a  uniform 
absolute  increase  would  be  grossly  unfair  to  some 
and  grossly  favourable  to  others.  The  increase 
is  therefore  proportional  to  the  cost  of  living. 
Moscow  is  taken  as  a  norm  of  100,  and  when  a 
new  minimum  wage  is  established  for  Moscow 
other  districts  increase  their  minimum  wage  pro- 
portionately. A  table  for  this  has  been  worked 
out,  whereby  in  comparison  with  100  for  Mos- 
cow, Petrograd  is  set  down  as  120,  Voronezh 
or  Kursk  as  70,  and  so  on. 

We  spoke  of  the  new  programme  of  the  Com- 
munists, rough  drafts  of  which  were  being  printed 
in  the  newspapers  for  discussion,  and  he  showed 

176 


me  his  own  suggestions  in  so  far  as  the  programme 
concerned  labour.  He  wished  the  programme  to 
include,  among  other  aims,  the  further  mechaniza- 
tion of  production,  particularly  the  mechanization 
of  all  unpleasant  and  dirty  processes,  improved 
sanitary  inspection,  shortening  of  the  working  day 
in  employments  harmful  to  health,  forbidding 
women  with  child  to  do  any  but  very  light  work, 
and  none  at  all  for  eight  weeks  before  giving 
birth  and  for  eight  weeks  afterwards,  forbidding 
overtime,  and  so  on.  "We  have  already  gone  far 
beyond  our  old  programme,  and  our  new  one  steps 
far  ahead  of  us.  Russia  is  the  first  country  in  the 
world  where  all  workers  have  a  fortnight's  holi- 
day in  the  year,  and  workers  in  dangerous  or  un- 
healthy occupations  have  a  month's." 

I  said,  "Yes,  but  don't  you  find  that  there  is 
a  very  long  way  between  the  passing  of  a  law  and 
its  realization*?" 

Schmidt  laughed  and  replied :  "In  some  things 
certainly,  yes.  For  example,  we  are  against  all 
overtime,  but,  in  the  present  state  of  Russia  we 
should  be  sacrificing  to  a  theory  the  good  of  the 
revolution  as  a  whole  if  we  did  not  allow  and  en- 

177 


courage  overtime  in  transport  repairs.  Similarly, 
until  things  are  further  developed  than  they  are 
now,  we  should  be  criminal  slaves  to  theory  if  we 
did  not,  in  some  cases,  allow  lads  under  sixteen 
years  old  to  be  in  the  factories  when  we  have  not 
yet  been  able  to  provide  the  necessary  schools 
where  we  would  wish  them  to  be.  But  the  pro- 
gramme is  there,  and  as  fast  as  it  can  be  realized 
we  are  realizing  it." 


178 


EDUCATION 

February  28th. 

AT  the  Commissariat  of  Public  Education  I  showed 
Professor  Pokrovsky  a  copy  of  The  German- 
Bolshevik  Conspiracy,  published  in  America,  con- 
taining documents  supposed  to  prove  that  the 
German  General  Staff  arranged  the  November 
Revolution,  and  that  the  Bolsheviks  were  no  more 
than  German  agents.  The  weak  point  about  the 
documents  is  that  the  most  important  of  them 
have  no  reason  for  existence  except  to  prove  that 
there  was  such  a  conspiracy.  These  are  the  docu- 
ments bought  by  Mr.  Sisson.  I  was  interested  to 
see  what  Pokrovsky  would  say  of  them.  He 
looked  through  them,  and  while  saying  that  he 
had  seen  forged  documents  better  done,  pointed 
as  evidence  to  the  third  of  them  which  ends  with 
the  alleged  signatures  of  Zalkind,  Polivanov,  Mek- 
hanoshin  and  Joffe.  He  observed  that  whoever 

179 


forged  the  things  knew  a  good  deal,  but  did  not 
know  quite  enough,  because  these  persons,  de- 
scribed as  "plenipotentiaries  of  the  Council  of 
Peoples'  Commissars,"  though  all  actually  in  the 
service  of  the  Soviet  Government,  could  not  all, 
at  that  time,  have  been  what  they  were  said  to  be. 
Polivanov,  for  example,  was  a  very  minor  official. 
Joffe,  on  the  other  hand,  was  indeed  a  person  of 
some  importance.  The  putting  of  the  names  in 
that  order  was  almost  as  funny  as  if  they  had 
produced  a  document  signed  by  Lenin  and  the 
Commandant  of  the  Kremlin,  putting  the  latter 
first. 

Pokrovsky  told  me  a  good  deal  about  the  or- 
ganization of  this  Commissariat,  as  Lunacharsky, 
the  actual  head  of  it,  was  away  in  Petrograd. 
The  routine  work  is  run  by  a  College  of  nine  mem- 
bers appointed  by  the  Council  of  People's  Commis- 
sars. The  Commissar  of  Education  himself  is 
appointed  by  the  All-Russian  Executive  Commit- 
tee. Besides  this,  there  is  a  Grand  College  which 
meets  rarely  for  the  settlement  of  important  ques- 
tions. In  it  are  representatives  of  the  Trades 
Unions,  the  Workers'  Co-operatives,  the  Teachers' 

180 


Union,  various  Commissariats  such  as  that  for 
affairs  of  Nationality,  and  other  public  organiza- 
tions. He  also  gave  me  then  and  at  a  later  date 
a  number  of  figures  illustrating  the  work  that  has 
been  done  since  the  revolution.  Thus  whereas 
there  used  to  be  six  universities  there  are  now  six- 
teen, most  of  the  new  universities  having  been 
opened  on  the  initiative  of  the  local  Soviets,  as 
at  Astrakhan,  Nijni,  Kostroma,  Tambov, 
Smolensk  and  other  places.  New  polytechnics 
are  being  founded.  At  Ivano-Vosnesensk  the  new 
polytechnic  is  opened  and  that  at  Briansk  is  be- 
ing prepared.  The  number  of  students  in  the 
universities  has  increased  enormously  though  not 
to  the  same  proportion  as  the  number  of  universi- 
ties, partly  because  the  difficulties  of  food  supply 
keep  many  students  out  of  the  towns,  and  partly 
because  of  the  newness  of  some  of  the  universities 
which  are  only  now  gathering  their  students  about 
them.  All  education  is  free.  In  August  last  a 
decree  was  passed  abolishing  preliminary  exami- 
nations for  persons  wishing  to  become  students. 
It  was  considered  that  very  many  people  who 
could  attend  the  lectures  with  profit  to  them- 

181 


selves  had  been  prevented  by  the  war  or  by  pre- 
revolution  conditions  from  acquiring  the  sort  of 
knowledge  that  could  be  tested  by  examination. 
It  was  also  believed  that  no  one  would  willingly 
listen  to  lectures  that  were  of  no  use  to  him. 
They  hoped  to  get  as  many  working  men  into  the 
universities  as  possible.  Since  the  passing  of  that 
decree  the  number  of  students  at  Moscow  Uni- 
versity, for  example,  has  more  than  doubled.  It 
is  interesting  to  notice  that  of  the  new  students  a 
greater  number  are  studying  in  the  faculties  of 
science  and  history  and  philosophy  than  in  those 
of  medicine  or  law.  Schools  are  being  unified  on 
a  new  basis  in  which  labour  plays  a  great  part. 
I  frankly  admit  I  do  not  understand,  and  I  gather 
that  many  teachers  have  also  failed  to  understand, 
how  this  is  done.  Crafts  of  all  kinds  take  a  big 
place  in  the  scheme.  The  schools  are  divided  into 
two  classes — one  for  children  from  seven  to  twelve 
years  old,  and  one  for  those  aged  from  thirteen  to 
seventeen.  A  milliard  roubles  has  been  assigned 
to  feeding  children  in  the  schools,  and  those  who 
most  need  them  are  supplied  with  clothes  and 
footgear.  Then  there  are  many  classes  for  work- 

182 


ing  men,  designed  to  give  the  worker  a  general 
scientific  knowledge  of  his  own  trade  and  so  pre- 
vent him  from  being  merely  a  machine  carrying 
out  a  single  uncomprehended  process.  Thus  a 
boiler-maker  can  attend  a  course  on  mechanical 
engineering,  an  electrical  worker  a  course  on 
electricity,  and  the  best  agricultural  experts  are 
being  employed  to  give  similar  lectures  to  the 
peasants.  The  workmen  crowd  to  these  courses. 
One  course,  for  example,  is  attended  by  a  thou- 
sand men  in  spite  of  the  appalling  cold  of  the 
lecture  rooms.  The  hands  of  the  science  pro- 
fessors, so  Pokrovsky  told  me,  are  frostbitten  from 
touching  the  icy  metal  of  their  instruments  during 
demonstrations. 

The  following  figures  represent  roughly  the 
growth  in  the  number  of  libraries.  In  October, 
1917,  there  were  23  libraries  in  Petrograd,  30  in 
Moscow.  To-day  there  are  49  in  Petrograd  and 
85  in  Moscow,  besides  a  hundred  book  distribut- 
ing centres.  A  similar  growth  in  the  number  of 
libraries  has  taken  place  in  the  country  districts. 
In  Ousolsky  ouezd^  for  example,  there  are  now 
73  village  libraries,  35  larger  libraries  and  500 

183 


hut  libraries  or  reading  rooms.  In  Moscow  edu- 
cational institutions,  not  including  schools,  have 
increased  from  369  to  1,357. 

There  are  special  departments  for  the  circula- 
tion of  printed  matter,  and  they  really  have  de- 
veloped a  remarkable  organization.  I  was  shown 
over  their  headquarters  on  the  Tverskaya,  and  saw 
huge  maps  of  Russia  with  all  the  distributing  cen- 
tres marked  with  reference  numbers  so  that  it  was 
possible  to  tell  in  a  moment  what  number  of  any 
new  publication  should  be  sent  to  each.  Every 
post  office  is  a  distributing  centre  to  which  is  sent 
a  certain  number  of  all  publications,  periodical 
and  other.  The  local  Soviets  ask  through  the  post 
offices  for  such  quantities  as  are  required,  so  that 
the  supply  can  be  closely  regulated  by  the  de- 
mand. The  bookselling  kiosks  send  in  reports  of 
the  sale  of  the  various  newspapers,  etc.,  to  elimi- 
nate the  waste  of  over-production,  a  very  impor- 
tant matter  in  a  country  faced  simultaneously  by 
a  vigorous  demand  for  printed  matter  and  an  ex- 
treme scarcity  of  paper. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  have  statistics  to 
illustrate  the  character  of  the  literature  in  de- 

184 


mand.  One  thing  can  be  said  at  once.  No  one 
reads  sentimental  romances.  As  is  natural  in  a 
period  of  tremendous  political  upheaval  pamphlets 
sell  by  the  thousand,  speeches  of  Lenin  and  Trot- 
sky are  only  equalled  in  popularity  by  Demian 
Biedny's  more  or  less  political  poetry.  Pamphlets 
and  books  on  Marx,  on  the  war,  and  particularly 
on  certain  phases  of  the  revolution,  on  different 
aspects  of  economic  reconstruction,  simply  written 
explanations  of  laws  or  policies  vanish  almost  as 
soon  as  they  are  put  on  the  stalls.  The  reading 
of  this  kind  has  been  something  prodigious  during 
the  revolution.  A  great  deal  of  poetry  is  read, 
and  much  is  written.  It  is  amusing  to  find  in  a 
red-hot  revolutionary  paper  serious  articles  and 
letters  by  well-meaning  persons  advising  would-be 
proletarian  poets  to  stick  to  Pushkin  and  Lermon- 
tov.  There  is  much  excited  controversy  both  in 
magazine  and  pamphlet  form  as  to  the  distin- 
guishing marks  of  the  new  proletarian  art  which 
is  expected  to  come  out  of  the  revolution  and 
no  doubt  will  come,  though  not  in  the  form  ex- 
pected. But  the  Communists  cannot  be  accused 
of  being  unfaithful  to  the  Russian  classics.  Even 

185 


Radek,  a  foreign  fosterchild  and  an  adopted  Rus- 
sian, took  Gogol  as  well  as  Shakespeare  with  him 
when  he  went  to  annoy  General  Hoffmann  at 
Brest.  The  Soviet  Government  has  earned  the 
gratitude  of  many  Russians  who  dislike  it  for 
everything  else  it  has  done  by  the  resolute  way 
in  which  it  has  brought  the  Russian  classics  into 
the  bookshops.  Books  that  were  out  of  print  and 
unobtainable,  like  Kliutchevsky's  "Courses  in  Rus- 
sian History,"  have  been  reprinted  from  the 
stereotypes  and  set  afloat  again  at  most  reason- 
able prices.  I  was  also  able  to  buy  a  book  of  his 
which  I  have  long  wanted,  his  "Foreigners'  Ac- 
counts of  the  Muscovite  State,"  which  had  also 
fallen  out  of  print.  In  the  same  way  the  Gov- 
ernment has  reprinted,  and  sells  at  fixed  low  prices 
that  may  not  be  raised  by  retailers,  the  works  of 
Koltzov,  Nikitin,  Krylov,  Saltykov-Shtchedrin, 
Chekhov,  Goncharov,  Uspensky,  Tchernyshevsky, 
Pomyalovsky  and  others.  It  is  issuing  Chukov- 
sky's  edition  of  Nekrasov,  reprints  of  Tolstoy, 
Dostoievsky  and  Turgenev,  and  books  by  Pro- 
fessor Timiriazev,  Karl  Pearson  and  others  of  a 
scientific  character,  besides  the  complete  works  of 

186 


Lenin's  old  rival,  Plekhanov.  It  is  true  that  most 
of  this  work  is  simply  done  by  reprinting  from 
old  stereotypes,  but  the  point  is  that  the  books 
are  there,  and  the  sale  for  them  is  very  large. 

Among  the  other  experts  on  the  subject  of  the 
Soviet's  educational  work  I  consulted  two  friends, 
a  little  boy,  Glyeb,  who  sturdily  calls  himself  a 
Cadet  though  three  of  his  sisters  work  in  Soviet 
institutions,  and  an  old  and  very  wise  porter. 
Glyeb  says  that  during  the  winter  they  had  no 
heating,  so  that  they  sat  in  school  in  their  coats, 
and  only  sat  for  a  very  short  time,  because  of  the 
great  cold.  He  told  me,  however,  that  they  gave 
him  a  good  dinner  there  every  day,  and  that  les- 
sons would  be  all  right  as  soon  as  the  weather  got 
warmer.  He  showed  me  a  pair  of  felt  boots 
which  had  been  given  him  at  the  school.  The 
old  porter  summed  up  the  similar  experience  of 
his  sons.  "Yes,"  he  said,  "they  go  there,  sing 
the  Marseillaise  twice  through,  have  dinner  and 
come  home."  I  then  took  these  expert  criticisms 
to  Pokrovsky  who  said,  "It  is  perfectly  true.  We 
have  not  enough  transport  to  feed  the  armies,  let 
alone  bringing  food  and  warmth  for  ourselves. 

187 


And  if,  under  these  conditions,  we  forced  children 
to  go  through  all  their  lessons  we  should  have 
corpses  to  teach,  not  children.  But  by  making 
them  come  for  their  meals  we  do  two  things,  keep 
them  alive,  and  keep  them  in  the  habit  of  coming, 
so  that  when  the  warm  weather  comes  we  can  do 
better." 


188 


A  BOLSHEVIK  FELLOW  OF  THE 
ROYAL  SOCIETY 

AT  Sukhanov's  suggestion  I  went  to  see  Professor 
Timiriazev,  the  greatest  Russian  Darwinian,  well- 
known  to  many  scientific  men  in  this  country,  a 
foreign  member  of  the  Royal  Society,  a  Doctor 
of  Cambridge  University  and  a  Bolshevik.  He 
is  about  eighty  years  old.  His  left  arm  is  para- 
lysed, and,  as  he  said,  he  can  only  work  at  his 
desk  and  not  be  out  and  about  to  help  as  he  would 
wish.  A  venerable  old  savant,  he  was  sitting  writ- 
ing with  a  green  dressing  gown  about  him,  for  his 
little  flat  was  very  cold.  On  the  walls  were  por- 
traits of  Darwin,  Newton  and  Gilbert,  besides 
portraits  of  contemporary  men  of  science  whom 
he  had  known.  English  books  were  everywhere. 
He  gave  me  two  copies  of  his  last  scientific  book 
and  his  latest  portrait  to  take  to  two  of  his  friends 
in  England. 

189 


He  lives  with  his  wife  and  son.  I  asked  if  his 
son  were  also  a  Bolshevik. 

"Of  course,"  he  replied. 

He  then  read  me  a  letter  he  had  written,  pro- 
testing against  intervention.  He  spoke  of  his  old 
love  for  England  and  for  the  English  people. 
Then,  speaking  of  the  veil  of  lies  drawn  between 
Soviet  Russia  and  the  rest  of  the  world,  he  broke 
down  altogether,  and  bent  his  head  to  hide  his 
tears. 

"I  suffer  doubly,"  he  said,  after  excusing  him- 
self for  the  weakness  of  a  very  old  man.  "I  suffer 
as  a  Russian,  and,  if  I  may  say  so,  I  suffer  as  an 
Englishman.  I  have  English  blood  in  my  veins. 
My  mother,  you  see,  looks  quite  English,"  pointing 
to  a  daguerreotype  on  the  wall,  "and  my  grand- 
mother was  actually  English.  I  suffer  as  an  Eng- 
lishman when  I  see  the  country  that  I  love  misled 
by  lies,  and  I  suffer  as  a  Russian  because  those  lies 
concern  the  country  to  which  I  belong,  and  the 
ideas  which  I  am  proud  to  hold." 

The  old  man  rose  with  difficulty,  for  he,  like 
every  one  else  in  Moscow,  is  half  starved.  He 
showed  me  his  Byron,  his  Shakespeare,  his  En- 

190 


cyclopaedia  Britannica,  his  English  diplomas.  He 
pointed  to  the  portraits  on  the  wall.  "If  I  could 
but  let  them  know  the  truth,"  he  said,  "those 
friends  of  mine  in  England,  they  would  protest 
against  actions  which  are  unworthy  of  the  Eng- 
land we  have  loved  together." 


191 


DIGRESSION 

AT  this  point  the  chronological  arrangement  of 
my  book,  already  weak,  breaks  down  altogether. 
So  far  I  have  set  down,  almost  day  by  day,  things 
seen  and  heard  which  seemed  to  me  characteristic 
and  clear  illustration  of  the  mentality  of  the  Com- 
munists, of  the  work  that  has  been  done  or  that 
they  are  trying  to  do,  and  of  the  general  state  of 
affairs.  I  spent  the  whole  of  my  time  in  ceaseless 
investigation,  talking  now  with  this  man,  now 
with  that,  until  at  the  end  of  a  month  I  was  so 
tired  (besides  being  permanently  hungry)  that  I 
began  to  fear  rather  than  to  seek  new  experiences 
and  impressions.  The  last  two  weeks  of  my  stay 
were  spent,  not  in  visiting  Commissariats,  but  in 
collecting  masses  of  printed  material,  in  talking 
with  my  friends  of  the  opposition  parties,  and, 
while  it  was  in  progress,  visiting  daily  the  Confer- 
ence in  the  Kremlin  which,  in  the  end,  definitely 

192 


announced  itself  as  the  Third  International.  I 
have  considered  it  best  to  treat  of  that  Confer- 
ence more  or  less  as  a  whole,  and  am  therefore 
compelled  to  disregard  chronology  altogether  in 
putting  down  on  paper  <the  results  of  some  of  my 
talks  with  the  opposition.  Some  of  these  took 
place  on  the  same  days  as  my  visits  to  the  Kremlin 
conference,  and  during  those  days  I  was  also  partly 
engaged  in  getting  to  see  the  British  prisoners  in 
the  Butyrka  prison,  in  which  I  eventually  suc- 
ceeded. This  is  my  excuse  for  the  inadequacy  of 
ny  account  of  the  conference,  an  inadequacy  which 
I  regret  the  more  as  I  was  the  only  non-Communist 
who  was  able  to  be  there  at  all. 


193 


THE  OPPOSITION 

No  man  likes  being  hungry.  No  man  likes  being 
cold.  Everybody  in  Moscow,  as  in  Petrograd,  is 
both  hungry  and  cold.  There  is  consequently  very 
general  and  very  bitter  discontent.  This  is  of 
course  increased,  not  lessened,  by  the  discipline 
introduced  into  the  factories  and  the  heavy  burden 
of  the  army,  although  the  one  is  intended  to 
hasten  the  end  of  hunger  and  cold  and  the  other 
for  the  defence  of  the  revolution.  The  Com- 
munists, as  the  party  in  power,  naturally  bear  the 
blame  and  are  the  objects  of  the  discontent,  which 
will  certainly  within  a  short  time  be  turned  upon 
any  other  government  that  may  succeed  them. 
That  government  must  introduce  sterner  discipline 
rather  than  weaker,  and  the  transport  and  other 
difficulties  of  the  country  will  remain  the  same, 
unless  increased  by  the  disorder  of  a  new  up- 
heaval and  the  active  or  passive  resistance  of  many 

194 


who  are  convinced  revolutionaries  or  will  become 
so  in  answer  to  repression. 

The  Communists  believe  that  to  let  power  slip 
from  their  hands  at  this  moment  would  be  treach- 
ery to  the  revolution.  And,  in  the  face  of  the 
advancing  forces  of  the  Allies  and  Kolchak  many 
of  the  leaders  of  the  opposition  are  inclined  to 
agree  with  them,  and  temporarily  to  submit  to 
what  they  undoubtedly  consider  rank  tyranny. 
A  position  has  been  reached  after  these  eighteen 
months  not  unlike  that  reached  by  the  English 
Parliament  party  in  1643.  I  am  reminded  of  a 
passage  in  Guizot,  which  is  so  illuminating  that 
I  make  no  apology  for  quoting  it  in  full : — 

"The  party  had  been  in  the  ascendant  for  three 
years:  whether  it  had  or  had  not,  in  church  and 
state,  accomplished  its  designs,  it  was  at  all  events 
by  its  aid  and  concurrence  that,  for  three  years, 
public  affairs  had  been  conducted;  this  alone  was 
sufficient  to  make  many  people  weary  of  it ;  it  was 
made  responsible  for  the  many  evils  already  en- 
dured, for  the  many  hopes  frustrated;  it  was  de- 
nounced as  being  no  less  addicted  to  persecution 
than  the  bishops,  no  less  arbitrary  than  the  king: 

195 


its  inconsistencies,  its  weaknesses,  were  recalled 
with  bitterness;  and,  independently  of  this,  even 
without  factions  or  interested  views,  from  the  mere 
progress  of  events  and  opinions,  there  was  felt  a 
secret  need  of  new  principles  and  new  rulers." 

New  rulers  are  advancing  on  Moscow  from  Si- 
beria, but  I  do  not  think  that  they  claim  that  they 
are  bringing  with  them  new  principles.  Though 
the  masses  may  want  new  principles,  and  might 
for  a  moment  submit  to  a  reintroduction  of  very 
old  principles  in  desperate  hope  of  less  hunger  and 
less  cold,  no  one  but  a  lunatic  could  imagine  that 
they  would  for  very  long  willingly  submit  to 
them.  In  the  face  of  the  danger  that  they  may 
be  forced  to  submit  not  to  new  principles  but  to 
very  old  ones,  the  non-Communist  leaders  are  un- 
willing to  use  to  the  full  the  discontent  that  exists. 
Hunger  and  cold  are  a  good  enough  basis  of  agita- 
tion for  anyone  desirous  of  overturning  any  exist- 
ing government.  But  the  Left  Social  Revolu- 
tionaries, led  by  the  hysterical  but  flamingly  hon- 
est Spiridonova,  are  alone  in  having  no  scruples 
or  hesitation  in  the  matter,  the  more  responsible 
parties  fearing  the  anarchy  and  consequent  weak- 

196 


ening  of  the  revolution  that  would  result  from 
any  violent  change. 

THE  LEFT  SOCIAL  REVOLUTIONARIES 

The  Left  Social  Revolutionaries  want  something 
so  much  like  anarchy  that  they  have  nothing  to 
fear  in  a  collapse  of  the  present  system.  They 
are  for  a  partisan  army,  not  a  regular  army.  They 
are  against  the  employment  of  officers  who  served 
under  the  old  regime.  They  are  against  the  em- 
ployment of  responsible  technicians  and  commer- 
cial experts  in  the  factories.  They  believe  that 
officers  and  experts  alike,  being  ex-bourgeois,  must 
be  enemies  of  the  people,  insidiously  engineering 
reaction.  They  are  opposed  to  any  agreement 
with  the  Allies,  exactly  as  they  were  opposed  to 
any  agreement  with  the  Germans.  I  heard  them 
describe  the  Communists  as  "the  bourgeois  gen- 
darmes of  the  Entente,"  on  the  ground  that  hav- 
ing offered  concessions  they  would  be  keeping 
order  in  Russia  for  the  benefit  of  Allied  capital. 
They  blew  up  Mirbach,  and  would  no  doubt  try 
to  blow  up  any  successors  he  might  have.  Not 
wanting  a  regular  army  (a  low  bourgeois  weapon) 

197 


they  would  welcome  occupation  in  order  that  they, 
with  bees  in  their  bonnets  and  bombs  in  their 
hands,  might  go  about  revolting  against  it. 

I  did  not  see  Spiridonova,  because  on  February 
1 1,  the  very  day  when  I  had  an  appointment  with 
her,  the  Communists  arrested  her,  on  the  ground 
that  her  agitation  was  dangerous  and  anarchist  in 
tendency,  fomenting  discontent  without  a  pro- 
gramme for  its  satisfaction.  Having  a  great  re- 
spect for  her  honesty,  they  were  hard  put  to  it 
to  know  what  to  do  with  her,  and  she  was  finally 
sentenced  to  be  sent  for  a  year  to  a  home  for 
neurasthenics,  "where  she  would  be  able  to  read 
and  write  and  recover  her  normality."  That  the 
Communists  were  right  in  fearing  this  agitation 
was  proved  by  the  troubles  in  Petrograd,  where 
the  workmen  in  some  of  the  factories  struck,  and 
passed  Left  Social  Revolutionary  resolutions 
which,  so  far  from  showing  that  they  were  await- 
ing reaction  and  General  Judenitch,  showed  sim- 
ply that  they  were  discontented  and  prepared  to 
move  to  the  left. 


198 


THE  MENSHEVIKS 

The  second  main  group  of  opposition  is  domi- 
nated by  the  Mensheviks.  Their  chief  leaders  are 
Martov  and  Dan.  Of  these  two,  Martov  is  by 
far  the  cleverer,  Dan  the  more  garrulous,  being 
often  led  away  by  his  own  volubility  into  agita- 
tion of  a  kind  not  approved  by  his  friends.  Both 
are  men  of  very  considerable  courage.  Both  are 
Jews. 

The  Mensheviks  would  like  the  reintroduction 
of  capitalists,  of  course  much  chastened  by  expe- 
rience, and  properly  controlled  by  themselves. 
Unlike  Spiridonova  and  her  romantic  supporters 
they  approved  of  Chicherin's  offer  of  peace  and 
concessions  to  the  Allies  (see  page  44).  They 
have  even  issued  an  appeal  that  the  Allies  should 
come  to  an  agreement  with  "Lenin's  Government." 
As  may  be  gathered  from  their  choice  of  a  name 
for  the  Soviet  Government,  they  are  extremely 
hostile  to  it,  but  they  fear  worse  things,  and  are 
consequently  a  little  shy  of  exploiting  as  they 
easily  could  the  dislike  of  the  people  for  hunger 
and  cold.  They  fear  that  agitation  on  these  lines 

199 


might  well  result  in  anarchy,  which  would  leave 
the  revolution  temporarily  defenceless  against 
Kolchak,  Denikin,  Judenitch  or  any  other  armed 
reactionary.  Their  non-Communist  enemies  say 
of  the  Mensheviks:  "They  have  no  constructive 
programme;  they  would  like  a  bourgeois  govern- 
ment back  again,  in  order  that  they  might  be  in 
opposition  to  it,  on  the  left." 

On  March  2nd,  I  went  to  an  election  meeting 
of  workers  and  officials  of  the  Moscow  Co-opera- 
tives. It  was  beastly  cold  in  the  hall  of  the  Uni- 
versity where  the  meeting  was  held,  and  my  nose 
froze  as  well  as  my  feet.  Speakers  were  an- 
nounced from  the  Communists,  Internationalists, 
Mensheviks,  and  Right  Social  Revolutionaries. 
The  last-named  did  not  arrive.  The  Presidium 
was  for  the  most  part  non-Communist,  and  the 
meeting  was  about  equally  divided  for  and  against 
the  Communists.  A  Communist  led  off  with  a 
very  bad  speech  on  the  general  European  situation 
and  to  the  effect  that  there  was  no  salvation  for 
Russia  except  by  the  way  she  was  going.  Lozov- 
sky,(the  old  Internationalist,  spoke  next,  support- 
ing the  Bolsheviks'  general  policy  but  criticizing 

200 


their  suppression  of  the  press.     Then  came  Dan, 
the  Menshevik,  to  hear  whom  I  had  come.     He  is 
a  little,  sanguine  man,  who  gets  very  hot  as  he 
speaks.     He  conducted  an  attack  on  the  whole 
Bolshevik  position  combined  with  a  declaration 
that  so  long  as  they  are  attacked  from  without  he 
is  prepared  to  support  them.     The  gist  of  his 
speech  was:     i.  He  was  in  favour  of  fighting 
Kolchak.     2.  But  the  Bolshevik  policy  with  re- 
gard to  the  peasants  will,  since  as  the  army  grows 
it  must  contain  more  and  more  peasants,  end  in  the 
creation  of  an  army  with  counter-revolutionary 
sympathies.     3.  He    objected    to   the    Bolshevik 
criticism  of  the  Berne  delegation  (see  page  156) 
on    very    curious    grounds,    saying    that    though 
Thomas,  Henderson,  etc.,  backed  their  own  Impe- 
rialists during  the  war,  all  that  was  now  over,  and 
that  union  with  them  would  help,  not  hinder,  revo- 
lution in  England  and  France.     4.  He  pointed 
out  that  "All  power  to  the  Soviets"  now  means 
"All  power  to  the  Bolsheviks,"  and  said  that  he 
wished  that  the  Soviets  should  actually  have  all 
power  instead  of  merely  supporting  the  Bolshevik 
bureaucracy.     He   was  asked  for  his  own  pro- 

201 


gramme,  but  said  he  had  not  time  to  give  it.  I 
watched  the  applause  carefully.  General  dissatis- 
faction with  the  present  state  of  affairs  was  obvi- 
ous, but  it  was  also  obvious  that  no  party  would 
have  a  chance  that  admitted  its  aim  was  extinction 
of  the  Soviets  (which  Dan's  ultimate  aim  certainly 
is,  or  at  least  the  changing  of  them  into  non-politi- 
cal industrial  organizations)  or  that  was  not  pre- 
pared to  fight  against  reaction  from  without. 

I  went  to  see  Sukhanov  (the  friend  of  Gorky 
and  Martov,  though  his  political  opinions  do  not 
precisely  agree  with  those  of  either),  partly  to  get 
the  proofs  of  his  first  volume  of  reminiscences  of 
the  revolution,  partly  to  hear  what  he  had  to  say. 
I  found  him  muffled  up  in  a  dressing-gown  or 
overcoat  in  an  unheated  flat,  sitting  down  to  tea 
with  no  sugar,  very  little  bread,  a  little  sausage  and 
a  surprising  scrap  of  butter,  brought  in,  I  suppose, 
from  the  country  by  a  friend.  Nikitsky,  a  Men- 
shevik,  was  also  there,  a  hopeless  figure,  prophesy- 
ing the  rotting  of  the  whole  system  and  of  the  revo- 
lution. Sukhanov  asked  me  if  I  had  noticed  the 
disappearance  of  all  spoons  (there  are  now  none 
but  wooden  spoons  in  the  Metropole)  as  a  symbol' 

202 


of  the  falling  to  pieces  of  the  revolution.  I  told 
him  that  though  I  had  not  lived  in  Russia  thirty 
years  or  more,  as  he  had,  I  had  yet  lived  there  long 
enough  and  had,  before  the  revolution,  sufficient 
experience  in  the  loss  of  fishing  tackle,  not  to  be 
surprised  that  Russian  peasants,  even  delegates, 
when  able,  as  in  such  a  moment  of  convulsion  as 
the  revolution,  stole  spoons  if  only  as  souvenirs 
to  show  that  they  had  really  been  to  Moscow. 

We  talked,  of  course,  of  their  attitude  towards 
the  Bolsheviks.  Both  work  in  Soviet  institutions. 
Sukhanov  (Nikitsky  agreeing)  believed  that  if  the 
Bolsheviks  came  further  to  meet  the  other  parties, 
Mensheviks,  etc.,  "Kolchak  and  Denikin  would 
commit  suicide  and  your  Lloyd  George  would  give 
up  all  thought  of  intervention."  I  asked,  What 
if  they  should  be  told  to  hold  a  Constituent  Assem- 
bly or  submit  to  a  continuance  of  the  blockade4? 
Sukhanov  said,  "Such  a  Constituent  Assembly 
would  be  impossible,  and  we  should  be  against  it." 
Of  the  Soviets,  one  or  other  said,  "We  stand  abso- 
lutely on  the  platform  of  the  Soviet  Government 
now:  but  we  think  that  such  a  form  cannot  be 
permanent.  We  consider  the  Soviets  perfect  iix- 

203 


struments  of  class  struggle,  but  not  a  perfect  form 
of  government."  I  asked  Sukhanov  if  he  thought 
counter  revolution  possible.  He  said  "No,"  but 
admitted  that  there  was  a  danger  lest  the  agitation 
of  the  Mensheviks  or  others  might  set  fire  to  the 
discontent  of  the  masses  against  the  actual  physi- 
cal conditions,  and  end  in  pogroms  destroying  Bol- 
sheviks and  Mensheviks  alike.  Their  general  the- 
ory was  that  Russia  was  not  so  far  developed  that 
a  Socialist  State  was  at  present  possible.  They 
therefore  wanted  a  state  in  which  private  capital 
should  exist,  and  in  which  factories  were  not  run 
by  the  state  but  by  individual  owners.  They  be- 
lieved that  the  peasants,  with  their  instincts  of 
small  property-holders,  would  eventually  enforce 
something  of  the  kind,  and  that  the  end  would  be 
some  form  of  democratic  Republic.  These  two 
were  against  the  offering  of  concessions  to  the 
Allies,  on  the  ground  that  those  under  considera- 
tion involved  the  handing  over  to  the  concession- 
aires of  the  whole  power  in  northern  Russia — 
railways,  forests,  the  right  to  set  up  their  own 
banks  in  the  towns  served  by  the  railway,  with  all 
that  this  implied.  Sukhanov  was  against  conces- 

204 


sions  on  principle,  and  regretted  that  the  Menshe- 
viks  were  in  favour  of  them. 

I  saw  Martov  at  the  offices  of  his  newspaper, 
which  had  just  been  suppressed  on  account  of  an 
article,  which  he  admitted  was  a  little  indiscreet, 
objecting  to  the  upkeep  of  the  Red  Army  (see  page 
167).  He  pointed  eloquently  to  the  seal  on  some 
of  the  doors,  but  told  me  that  he  had  started  a  new 
paper,  of  which  he  showed  me  the  first  number, 
and  told  me  that  the  demand  for  it  was  such  that 
although  he  had  intended  that  it  should  be  a 
weekly  he  now  expected  to  make  it  a  daily.  Mar- 
tov said  that  he  and  his  party  were  against  every 
form  of  intervention  for  the  following  reasons: 
1.  The  continuation  of  hostilities,  the  need  of  an 
army  and  of  active  defence  were  bound  to  inten- 
sify the  least  desirable  qualities  of  the  revolution, 
whereas  an  agreement,  by  lessening  the  tension, 
would  certainly  lead  to  moderation  of  Bolshevik 
policy.  2.  The  needs  of  the  army  overwhelmed 
every  effort  at  restoring  the  economic  life  of  the 
country.  He  was  further  convinced  that  inter- 
vention of  any  kind  favoured  reaction,  even  sup- 
posing that  the  Allies  did  not  wish  this.  "They 

205 


cannot  help  themselves,"  he  said,  "the  forces  that 
would  support  intervention  must  be  dominated  by 
those  of  reaction,  since  all  of  the  non-reactionary 
parties  are  prepared  to  sink  their  differences  with 
the  Bolsheviks,  in  order  to  defend  the  revolution 
as  a  whole."  He  said  he  was  convinced  that  the 
Bolsheviks  would  either  have  to  alter  or  go.  He 
read  me,  in  illustration  of  this,  a  letter  from  a 
peasant  showing  the  unreadiness  of  the  peasantry 
to  go  into  communes  (compulsion  in  this  matter 
has  already  been  discarded  by  the  Central  Govern- 
ment). "We  took  the  land,"  wrote  the  peasant 
in  some  such  words,  "not  much,  just  as  much  as  we 
could  work,  we  ploughed  it  where  it  had  not  been 
ploughed  before,  and  now,  if  it  is  made  into  a  com- 
mune, other  lazy  fellows  who  have  done  nothing 
will  come  in  and  profit  by  our  work."  Martov 
argued  that  life  itself,  the  needs  of  the  country  and 
the  will  of  the  peasant  masses,  would  lead  to  the 
changes  he  'thinks  desirable  in  the  S6viet  regime. 

THE  RIGHT  SOCIAL  REVOLUTIONARIES 

The  position  of  the  Right  Social  Revolution- 
aries is  a  good  deal  more  complicated  than  that  of 

206 


the  Mensheviks.  In  their  later  declarations  they 
are  as  far  from  their  romantic  anarchist  left  wing 
as  they  are  from  their  romantic  reactionary  ex- 
treme right.  They  stand,  as  they  have  always 
stood,  for  a  Constituent  Assembly,  but  they  have 
thrown  over  the  idea  of  instituting  a  Constituent 
Assembly  by  force.  They  have  come  into  closer 
contact  with  the  Allies  than  any  other  party  to  the 
left  of  the  Cadets.  By  doing  so,  by  associating 
themselves  with  the  Czech  forces  on  the  Volga 
and  minor  revolts  of  a  reactionary  character  inside 
Russia,  they  have  pretty  badly  compromised  them- 
selves. Their  change  of  attitude  towards  the 
Soviet  Government  must  not  be  attributed  to  any 
change  in  their  own  programme,  but  to  the  realiza- 
tion that  the  forces  which  they  imagined  were  sup- 
porting them  were  actually  being  used  to  support 
something  a  great  deal  further  right.  The  Print- 
ers' Gazette,  a  non-Bolshevik  organ,  printed  one 
of  their  resolutions,  one  point  of  which  demands 
the  overthrow  of  the  reactionary  governments  sup- 
ported by  the  Allies  or  the  Germans,  and  another 
condemns  every  attempt  to  overthrow  the  Soviet 
Government  by  force  of  arms,  on  the  ground  that 

207 


such  an  attempt  would  weaken  the  working  class 
as  a  whole  and  would  be  used  by  the  reactionary 
groups  for  their  own  purposes. 

Volsky  is  a  Right  Social  Revolutionary,  and  was 
President  of  that  Conference  of  Members  of  the 
Constituent  Assembly  from  whose  hands  the  Di- 
rectorate which  ruled  in  Siberia  received  its  au- 
thority and  Admiral  Kolchak  his  command,  his 
proper  title  being  Commander  of  the  Forces  of  the 
Constituent  Assembly.  The  Constituent  Assem- 
bly members  were  to  have  met  on  January  ist  of 
this  year,  then  to  retake  authority  from  the  Di- 
rectorate and  organize  a  government  on  an  All- 
Russian  basis.  But  there  was  continual  friction 
between  the  Directorate  and  the  Conference  of 
members  of  the  Constituent  Assembly,  the  Di- 
rectorate being  more  reactionary  than  they.  In 
November  came  Kolchak's  coup  d'etat,  followed 
by  a  declaration  against  him  and  an  appeal  for 
his  overthrow  issued  by  members  of  the  Con- 
stituent Assembly.  Some  were  arrested  by  a 
group  of  officers.  A  few  are  said  to  have  been 
killed.  Kolchak,  I  think,  has  denied  respon- 
sibility for  this,  and  probably  was  unaware  of 

208 


the  intentions  of  the  reactionaries  under  his 
command.  Others  of  the  members  escaped  to 
Ufa.  On  December  5th,  25  days  before  that 
town  was  taken  by  the  Bolsheviks,  they  an- 
nounced their  intention  of  no  longer  opposing  the 
Soviet  Government  in  the  field.  After  the  cap- 
ture of  the  town  by  the  Soviet  troops,  negotiations 
were  begun  between  the  representatives  of  the 
Conference  of  Members  of  the  Constituent  Assem- 
bly, together  with  other  Right  Social  Revolution- 
aries, and  representatives  of  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment, with  a  view  to  finding  a  basis  for  agreement. 
The  result  of  those  negotiations  was  the  resolution 
passed  by  the  Executive  Committee  on  February 
26th  (see  page  166).  A  delegation  of  the  mem- 
bers came  to  Moscow,  and  were  quaintly  housed 
in  a  huge  room  in  the  Metropole,  where  they  had 
put  up  beds  all  round  the  walls  and  big  tables  in 
the  middle  of  the  room  for  their  deliberations.  It 
was  in  this  room  that  I  saw  Volsky  first,  and  after- 
wards in  my  own. 

I  asked  him  what  exactly  had  brought  him  and 
all  that  he  represented  over  from  the  side  of  Kol- 
chak  and  the  Allies  to  the  side  of  the  Soviet  Gov- 

209 


ernment.  He  looked  me  straight  in  the  face,  and 
said:  "I'll  tell  you.  We  were  convinced  by 
many  facts  that  the  policy  of  the  Allied  representa- 
tives in  Siberia  was  directed  not  to  strengthening 
the  Constituent  Assembly  against  the  Bolsheviks 
and  the  Germans,  but  simply  to  strengthening  the 
reactionary  forces  behind  our  backs." 

He  also  complained:  "All  through  last  sum- 
mer we  were  holding  that  front  with  the  Czechs, 
being  told  that  there  were  two  divisions  of  Ger- 
mans advancing  to  attack  us,  and  we  now  know 
that  there  were  no  German  troops  in  Russia 
at  all." 

He  criticized  the  Bolsheviks  for  being  better 
makers  of  programmes  than  organizers.  They 
offered  free  electricity,  and  presently  had  to  admit 
that  soon  there  would  be  no  electricity  for  lack  of 
fuel.  They  did  not  sufficiently  base  their  policy 
on  the  study  of  actual  possibilities.  "But  that 
,they  are  really  fighting  against  a  bourgeois  dicta- 
torship is  clear  to  us.  We  are,  therefore,  prepared 
to  help  them  in  every  possible  way." 

He  said,  further:  "Intervention  of  any  kind 
210 


will  prolong  the  regime  of  the  Bolsheviks  by  com- 
pelling us  to  drop  opposition  to  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment, although  we  do  not  like  it,  and  to  support  it 
because  it  is  defending  the  revolution." 

With  regard  to  help  given  to  individual  groups 
or  governments  fighting  against  Soviet  Russia, 
Volsky  said  that  they  saw  no  difference  between 
such  intervention  and  intervention  in  the  form  of 
sending  troops. 

I  asked  what  he  thought  would  happen.  He 
answered  in  almost  the  same  words  as  those  used 
by  Martov,  that  life  itself  would  compel  the  Bol- 
sheviks to  alter  their  policy  or  to  go.  Sooner  or 
later  the  peasants  would  make  their  will  felt,  and 
they  were  against  the  bourgeoisie  and  against  the 
Bolsheviks.  No  bourgeois  reaction  could  win  per- 
manently against  the  Soviet,  because  it  could  have 
nothing  to  offer,  no  idea  for  which  people  would 
fight.  If  by  any  chance  Kolchak,  Denikin  and 
Co.  were  to  win,  they  would  have  to  kill  in  tens 
of  thousands  where  the  Bolsheviks  have  had  to  kill 
in  hundreds,  and  the  result  would  be  the  complete 
ruin  and  the  collapse  of  Russia  in  anarchy.  "Has 

211 


not  the  Ukraine  been  enough  to  teach  the  Allies 
that  even  six  months'  occupation  of  non-Bolshevik 
territory  by  half  a  million  troops  has  merely  the 
effect  of  turning  the  population  into  Bolsheviks?" 


212 


THE  THIRD  INTERNATIONAL 

March  3rd. 

ONE  day  near  the  end  of  February,  Bucharin, 
hearing  that  I  meant  to  leave  quite  soon,  said 
rather  mysteriously,  "Wait  a  few  days  longer,  be- 
cause something  of  international  importance  is 
going  to  happen  which  will  certainly  be  of  interest 
for  your  history."  That  was  the  only  hint  I  got  of 
the  preparation  of  the  Third  International.  Bu- 
charin refused  to  say  more.  On  March  3rd  Rein- 
stein  looked  in  about  nine  in  the  morning  and  said 
he  had  got  me  a  guest's  ticket  for  the  conference  in 
the  Kremlin,  and  wondered  why  I  had  not  been 
there  the  day  before,  when  it  had  opened.  I  told 
him  I  knew  nothing  whatever  about  it;  Litvinov 
and  Karakhan,  whom  I  had  seen  quite  recently, 
had  never  mentioned  it,  and  guessing  that  this 
must  be  the  secret  at  which  Bucharin  had  hinted, 
I  supposed  that  they  had  purposely  kept  silence. 

213 


I  therefore  rang  up  Litvinov,  and  asked  if  they 
had  had  any  reason  against  my  going.  He  said 
that  he  had  thought  it  would  not  interest  me.  So 
I  went.  The  Conference  was  still  a  secret. 
There  was  nothing  about  it  in  the  morning  papers. 
The  meeting  was  in  a  smallish  room,  with  a  dais 
at  one  end,  in  the  old  Courts  of  Justice  built  in  the 
time  of  Catherine  the  Second,  who  would  certainly 
have  turned  in  her  grave  if  she  had  known  the  use 
to  which  it  was  being  put.  Two  very  smart  sol- 
diers of  the  Red  Army  were  guarding  the  doors. 
The  whole  room,  including  the  floor,  was  deco- 
rated in  red.  There  were  banners  with  "Long 
Live  the  Third  International"  inscribed  upon  them 
in  many  languages.  The  Prsesidium  was  on  the 
raised  dais  at  the  end  of  the  room,  Lenin  sitting  in 
the  middle  behind  a  long  red-covered  table  with 
Albrecht,  a  young  German  Spartacist,  on  the  right 
and  Flatten,  the  Swiss,  on  the  left.  The  audito- 
rium sloped  down  to  the  foot  of  the  dais.  Chairs 
were  arranged  on  each  side  of  an  alleyway  down 
the  middle,  and  the  four  or  five  front  rows  had 
little  tables  for  convenience  in  writing.  Every- 
body of  importance  was  there ;  Trotzky,  Zinoviev, 

214 


Kamenev,  Chicherin,  Bucharin,  Karakhan,  Lit- 
vinov,  Vorovsky,  Steklov,  Rakovsky,  representing 
here  the  Balkan  Socialist  Party,  Skripnik,  repre- 
senting the  Ukraine.  Then  there  were  Stang 
(Norwegian  Left  Socialists^  Grimlund  (Swedish 
Left),  Sadoul  (France),  Finberg  (British  Social- 
ist Party),  Reinstein  (American  Socialist  Labour 
Party),  a  Turk,  a  German-Austrian,  a  Chinese, 
and  so  on.  Business  was  conducted  and  speeches 
were  made  in  all  languages,  though  where  possible 
German  was  used,  because  more  of  the  foreigners 
knew  German  than  knew  French.  This  was  un- 
lucky for  me. 

When  I  got  there  people  were  making  reports 
about  the  situation  in  the  different  countries. 
Finberg  spoke  in  English,  Rakovsky  in  French, 
Sadoul  also.  Skripnik,  who,  being  asked,  refused 
to  talk  German  and  said  he  would  speak  in  either 
Ukrainian  or  Russia,  and  to  most  people's  relief 
chose  the  latter,  made  several  interesting  points 
about  the  new  revolution  in  the  Ukraine.  The 
killing  of  the  leaders  under  the  Skoropadsky  re- 
gime had  made  no  difference  to  the  movement, 
and  town  after  town  was  falling  after  internal 

215 


revolt.  (This  was  before  they  had  Kiev  and,  of 
course,  long  before  they  had  taken  Odessa,  both 
of  which  gains  they  confidently  prophesied. )  The 
sharp  lesson  of  German  occupation  had  taught  the 
.Ukrainian  Social  Revolutionaries  what  their  expe- 
riences during  the  last  fifteen  months  had  taught 
the  Russian,  and  all  parties  were  working  to- 
gether. 

But  the  real  interest  of  the  gathering  was  in  its 
attitude  towards  the  Berne  conference.  Many 
letters  had  been  received  from  members  of  that 
conference,  Longuet  for  example,  wishing  that  the 
Communists  had  been  represented  there,  and  the 
view  taken  at  'Moscow  was  that  the  left  wing  at 
Berne  was  feeling  uncomfortable  at  sitting  down 
with  Scheidemann  and  Company;  let  them  defi- 
nitely break  with  them,  finish  with  the  Second 
International  and  join  the  Third.  It  was  clear 
that  this  gathering  in  the  Kremlin  was  meant  as  the 
nucleus  of  a  new  International  opposed  to  that 
which  had  split  into  national  groups,  each  sup- 
porting its  own  government  in  the  prosecution  of 
the  war.  That  was  the  leit  motif  of  the  whole 
affair. 

216 


Trotsky,  in  a  leather  coat,  military  breeches  and 
gaiters,  with  a  fur  hat  with  the  sign  of  the  Red 
Army  in  front,  was  looking  very  well,  but  a  strange 
figure  for  those  who  had  known  him  as  one  of  the 
greatest  anti-militarists  in  Europe.  Lenin  sat 
quietly  listening,  speaking  when  necessary  in  al- 
most every  European  language  with  astonishing 
ease.  Balabanova  talked  about  Italy  and  seemed 
happy  at  last,  even  in  Soviet  Russia,  to  be  once 
more  in  a  "secret  meeting."  It  was  really  an 
extraordinary  affair  and,  in  spite  of  some  childish- 
ness, I  could  not 'help  realizing  that  I  was  present 
at  something  that  will  go  down  in  the  histories  of 
socialism,  much  like  that  other  strange  meeting 
convened  in  London  in  1848. 

The  vital  figures  of  the  conference,  not  counting 
Flatten,  whom  I  do  not  know  and  on  whom  I  can 
express  no  opinion,  were  Lenin  and  the  young 
German,  Albrecht,  who,  fired  no  doubt  by  the 
events  actually  taking  place  in  his  country,  spoke 
with  brain  and  character.  The  German  Austrian 
also  seemed  a  real  man.  Rakovsky,  Skripnik,  and 
Sirola  the  Finn  really  represented  something. 
But  there  was  a  make-believe  side  to  the  whole 

217 


affair,  in  which  the  English  Left  Socialists  were 
represented  by  Finberg,  and  the  Americans  by 
Reinstein,  neither  of  whom  had  or  was  likely  to 
have  any  means  of  communicating  with  his  con- 
stituents. 

March  4th. 

In  the  Kremlin  they  were  discussing  the  pro- 
gramme on  which  the  new  International  was  to 
stand.  This  is,  of  course,  dictatorship  of  the  pro- 
letariat and  all  that  that  implies.  I  heard  Lenin 
make  a  long  speech,  the  main  point  of  which  was 
to  show  that  Kautsky  and  his  supporters  at  Berne 
were  now  condemning  the  very  tactics  which  they 
had  praised  in  1906.  When  I  was  leaving  the 
Kremlin  I  met  Sirola  walking  in  the  square  out- 
side the  building  without  a  hat,  without  a  coat,  in 
a  cold  so  intense  that  I  was  putting  snow  on  my 
nose  to  prevent  frost-bite.  I  exclaimed.  Sirola 
smiled  his  ingenuous  smile.  "It  is  March,"  he 
said,  "Spring  is  coming." 

March  5th. 

To-day  all  secrecy  was  dropped,  a  little  prema- 
218 


turely,  I  fancy,  for  when  I  got  to  the  Kremlin  I 
found  that  the  first  note  of  opposition  had  been 
struck  by  the  man  who  least  of  all  was  expected  to 
strike  it.  Albrecht,  the  young  German,  had  op- 
posed the  immediate  founding  of  the  Third  Inter- 
national, on  the  double  ground  that  not  all  nations 
were  properly  represented  and  that  it  might  make 
difficulties  for  the  political  parties  concerned  in 
their  own  countries.  Every  one  was  against  him. 
Rakovsky  pointed  out  that  the  same  objections 
could  have  been  raised  against  the  founding  of  the 
First  International  by  Marx  in  London.  The 
German-Austrian  combated  Albrecht's  second 
point.  Other  people  said  that  the  different  parties 
concerned  had  long  ago  definitely  broken  with  the 
Second  International.  Albrecht  was  in  a  minority 
of  one.  It  was  decided  therefore  that  this  confer- 
ence was  actually  the  Third  International.  Plat- 
ten  announced  the  decision,  and  the  "Interna- 
tional" was  sung  in  a  dozen  languages  at  once. 
Then  Albrecht  stood  up,  a  little  red  in  the  face, 
and  said  that  he,  of  course,  recognized  the  decision 
and  would  announce  it  in  Germany. 


219 


March  6th. 

The  conference  in  the  Kremlin  ended  with  the 
usual  singing  and  a  photograph.  Some  time  be- 
fore the  end,  when  Trotsky  had  just  finished  speak- 
ing and  had  left  the  tribune,  there  was  a  squeal  of 
protest  from  the  photographer  who  had  just 
trained  his  apparatus.  Some  one  remarked  "The 
Dictatorship  of  the  Photographer,"  and,  amid 
general  laughter,  Trotsky  had  to  return  to  the 
tribune  and  stand  silent  while  the  unabashed  pho- 
tographer took  two  pictures.  The  founding  of  the 
Third  International  had  been  proclaimed  in  the 
morning  papers,  and  an  extraordinary  meeting  in 
the  Great  Theatre  announced  for  the  evening.  I 
got  to  the  theatre  at  about  five,  and  had  difficulty 
in  getting  in,  though  I  had  a  special  ticket  as  a 
correspondent.  There  were  queues  outside  all  the 
doors.  The  Moscow  Soviet  was  there,  the  Execu- 
tive Committee,  representatives  of  the  Trades 
Unions  and  the  Factory  Committees,  etc.  The 
huge  theatre  and  the  platform  were  crammed,  peo- 
ple standing  in  the  aisles  and  even  packed  close 
together  in  the  wings  of  the  stage.  Kamenev 
opened  the  meeting  by  a  solemn  announcement  of 

220 


the  founding  of  the  Third  International  in  the 
Kremlin.  There  was  a  roar  of  applause  from  the 
audience,  which  rose  and  sang  the  "International" 
in  a  way  that  I  have  never  heard  it  sung  since  the 
All-Russian  Assembly  when  the  news  came  of  the 
strikes  in  Germany  during  the  Brest  negotiations. 
Kamenev  then  spoke  of  those  who  had  died  on  the 
way,  mentioning  Liebknecht  and  Rosa  Luxem- 
bourg, and  the  whole  theatre  stood  again  while  the 
orchestra  played,  "You  fell  as  victims."  Then 
Lenin  spoke.  If  I  had  ever  thought  that  Lenin 
was  losing  his  personal  popularity,  I  got  my  answer 
now.  It  was  a  long  time  before  he  could  speak  at 
all,  everybody  standing  and  drowning  his  attempts 
to  speak  with  roar  after  roar  of  applause.  It  was 
an  extraordinary,  overwhelming  scene,  tier  after 
tier  crammed  with  workmen,  the  parterre  filled, 
the  whole  platform  and  the  wings.  A  knot  of 
workwomen  were  close  to  me,  and  they  almost 
fought  to  see  him,  and  shouted  as  if  each  one  were 
determined  that  he  should  hear  her  in  particular. 
He  spoke  as  usual,  in  the  simplest  way,  emphasiz- 
ing the  fact  that  the  revolutionary  struggle  every- 
where was  forced  to  use  the  Soviet  forms.  "We 

221 


declare  our  solidarity  with  the  aims  of  the  Soviet- 
ists,"  he  read  from  an  Italian  paper,  and  added, 
"and  that  was  when  they  did  not  know  what  our 
aims  were,  and  before  we  had  an  established  pro- 
gramme ourselves."  Albrecht  made  a  very  long 
reasoned  speech  for  Spartacus,  which  was  trans- 
lated by  Trotsky.  Guilbeau,  seemingly  a  mere 
child,  spoke  of  the  socialist  movement  in  France. 
Steklov  was  translating  him  when  I  left.  You 
must  remember  that  I  had  had  nearly  two  years  of 
such  meetings,  and  am  not  a  Russian.  When  I 
got  outside  the  theatre,  I  found  at  each  door  a 
disappointed  crowd  that  had  been  unable  to  get  in. 

The  proceedings  finished  up  next  day  with  a  re- 
view in  the  Red  Square  and  a  general  holiday. 

If  the  Berne  delegates  had  come,  as  they  were 
expected,  they  would  have  been  told  by  the  Com- 
munists that  they  were  welcome  visitors,  but  that 
they  were  not  regarded  as  representing  the  Inter- 
national. There  would  then  have  ensued  a 
lively  battle  over  each  one  of  the  delegates,  the 
Mensheviks  urging  him  to  stick  to  Berne,  and  the 
Communists  urging  him  to  express  allegiance  to 
the  Kremlin.  There  would  have  been  demonstra- 

222 


tions  and  counter-demonstrations,  and  altogether 
I  am  very  sorry  that  it  did  not  happen  and  that  I 
was  not  there  to  see. 


LAST  TALK  WITH  LENIN 

I  WENT  to  see  Lenin  the  day  after  the  Review  in 
the  Red  Square,  and  the  general  holiday  in  honour 
of  the  Third  International.  The  first  thing  he 
said  was :  "I  am  afraid  that  the  Jingoes  in  Eng- 
land and  France  will  make  use  of  yesterday's  do- 
ings as  an  excuse  for  further  action  against  us. 
They  will  say  'How  can  we  leave  them  in  peace 
when  they  set  about  setting  the  world  on  fire*?' 
To  that  I  would  answer,  'We  are  at  war,  Mes- 
sieurs! And  just  as  during  your  war  you  tried  to 
make  revolution  in  Germany,  and  Germany  did 
her  best  to  make  trouble  in  Ireland  and  India,  so 
we,  while  we  are  at  war  with  you,  adopt  the  meas- 
ures that  are  open  to  us.  We  have  told  you  we 
are  willing  to  make  peace.'  " 

He  spoke  of  Chicherin's  last  note,  and  said  they 
based  all  their  hopes  on  it.  Balfour  had  said 
somewhere,  "Let  the  fire  burn  itself  out."  That  it 

224 


would  not  do.  But  the  quickest  way  of  restoring 
good  conditions  in  Russia  was,  of  course,  peace 
and  agreement  with  the  Allies.  "I  am  sure  we 
could  come  to  terms,  if  they  want  to  come  to  terms 
at  all.  England  and  America  would  be  willing, 
perhaps,  if  their  hands  were  not  tied  by  France. 
But  intervention  in  the  large  sense  can  now  hardly 
be.  They  must  have  learnt  that  Russia  could 
never  be  governed  as  India  is  governed,  and  that 
sending  troops  here  is  the  same  thing  as  sending 
them  to  a  Communist  University." 

I  said  something  about  the  general  hostility  to 
their  propaganda  noticeable  in  foreign  countries. 

Lenin.  "Tell  them  to  build  a  Chinese  wall 
round  each  of  their  countries.  They  have  their 
customs-officers,  their  frontiers,  their  coast-guards. 
They  can  expel  any  Bolsheviks  they  wish.  Revo- 
lution does  not  depend  on  propaganda.  If  the 
conditions  of  revolution  are  not  there  no  sort  of 
propaganda  will  either  hasten  or  impede  it.  The 
war  has  brought  about  those  conditions  in  all  coun- 
tries, and  I  am  convinced  that  if  Russia  to-day 
were  to  be  swallowed  up  by  the  sea,  were  to  cease 
to  exist  altogether,  the  revolution  in  the  rest  of 

225 


Europe  would  go  on.  Put  Russia  under  water  for 
twenty  years,  and  you  would  not  affect  by  a  shill- 
ing or  an  hour  a  week  the  demands  of  the  shop- 
stewards  in  England." 

I  told  him,  what  I  have  told  most  of  them  many 
times,  that  I  did  not  believe  there  would  be  a  revo- 
lution in  England. 

Lenin.  "We  have  a  saying  that  a  man  may 
have  typhoid  while  still  on  his  legs.  Twenty, 
maybe  thirty  years  ago  I  had  abortive  typhoid, 
and  was  going  about  with  it,  had  had  it  some 
days  before  it  knocked  me  over.  Well,  England 
and  France  and  Italy  have  caught  the  disease  al- 
ready. England  may  seem  to  you  to  be  un- 
touched, but  the  microbe  is  already  there." 

I  said  that  just  as  his  typhoid  was  abortive  ty- 
phoid, so  the  disturbances  in  England  to  which  he 
alluded  might  well  be  abortive  revolution,  and 
come  to  nothing.  I  told  him  the  vague,  discon- 
nected character  of  the  strikes  and  the  generally 
liberal  as  opposed  to  socialist  character  of  the 
movement,  so  far  as  it  was  political  at  all,  re- 
minded me  of  what  I  had  heard  of  1905  in  Russia 

226 


and  not  at  all  of  1917,  and  that  I  was  sure  it 
would  settle  down. 

Lenin.  "Yes,  that  is  possible.  It  is,  perhaps, 
an  educative  period,  in  which  the  English  workmen 
will  come  to  realize  their  political  needs,  and  turn 
from  liberalism  to  socialism.  Socialism  is  cer- 
tainly weak  in  England.  Your  socialist  move- 
ments, your  socialist  parties  ...  when  I  was  in 
England  I  zealously  attended  everything  I  could, 
and  for  a  country  with  so  large  an  industrial  popu- 
lation they  were  pitiable,  pitiable  ...  a  handful 
at  a  street  corner  ...  a  meeting  in  a  drawing 
•oom  ...  a  school  class  .  .  .  pitiable.  But  you 
must  remember  one  great  difference  between  Rus- 
sia of  1905  and  England  of  to-day.  Our  first 
Soviet  in  Russia  was  made  during  the  revolution. 
Your  shop-stewards  committees  have  been  in 
existence  long  before.  They  are  without  pro- 
gramme, without  direction,  but  the  opposition  they 
will  meet  will  force  a  programme  upon  them." 

Speaking  of  the  expected  visit  of  the  Berne  dele- 
gation, he  asked  me  if  I  knew  MacDonald,  whose 
.  name  had  been  substituted  for  that  of  Henderson 

227 


in  later  telegrams  announcing  their  coming.  He 
said :  "I  am  very  glad  MacDonald  is  coming  in- 
stead of  Henderson.  Of  course  MacDonald  is  not 
a  Marxist  in  any  sense  of  the  word,  but  he  is  at 
least  interested  in  theory,  and  can  therefore  be 
trusted  to  do  his  best  to  understand  what  is  hap- 
pening here.  More  than  that  we  do  not  ask." 

We  then  talked  a  little  on  a  subject  that  inter- 
ests me  very  much,  namely,  the  way  in  which  in- 
sensibly, quite  apart  from  war,  the  Communist 
theories  are  being  modified  in  the  difficult  process 
of  their  translation  into  practice.  We  talked  of 
the  changes  in  "workers'  control,"  which  is  now  a 
very  different  thing  from  the  wild  committee  busi- 
ness that  at  first  made  work  almost  impossible. 
We  talked  then  of  the  antipathy  of  the  peasants  to 
compulsory  communism,  and  how  that  idea  also 
had  been  considerably  whittled  away.  I  asked 
him  what  were  going  to  be  the  relations  between 
the  Communists  of  the  towns  and  the  property- 
loving  peasants,  and  whether  there  was  not  great 
danger  01  antipathy  between  them,  and  said  I  re- 
gretted leaving  too  soon  to  see  the  elasticity  of 

228 


the  Communist  theories  tested  by  the  inevitable 
pressure  of  the  peasantry. 

Lenin  said  that  in  Russia  there  was  a  pretty 
sharp  distinction  between  the  rich  peasants  and  the 
poor.  "The  only  opposition  we  have  here  in  Rus- 
sia is  directly  or  indirectly  due  to  the  rich  peasants. 
The  poor,  as  soon  as  they  are  liberated  from  the 
political  domination  of  the  rich,  are  on  our  side 
and  are  in  an  enormous  majority." 

I  said  that  would  not  be  so  in  the  Ukraine,  where 
property  among  the  peasants  is  much  more  equally 
distributed. 

Lenin.  "No.  And  there,  in  the  Ukraine,  you 
will  certainly  see  our  policy  modified.  Civil  war, 
whatever  happens,  is  likely  to  be  more  bitter  in 
the  Ukraine  than  elsewhere,  because  there  the  in- 
stinct of  property  has  been  further  developed  in 
the  peasantry,  and  the  minority  and  majority  will 
be  more  equal." 

He  asked  me  if  I  meant  to  return,  saying  that  I 
could  go  down  to  Kiev  to  watch  the  revolution 
there  as  I  had  watched  it  in  Moscow.  I  said  I 
should  be  very  sorry  to  think  that  this  was  my  last 

229 


visit  to  the  country  which  I  love  only  second  to  my 
own.  He  laughed,  and  paid  me  the  compliment 
of  saying  that,  "although  English,"  I  had  more  or 
less  succeeded  in  understanding  what  they  were  at, 
and  that  he  should  be  pleased  to  see  me  again. 


\RY 

"   330   C- 
VANCOUVER,  B.  C? 


THE  JOURNEY  OUT 

March  15'th. 

THERE  is  nothing  to  record  about  the  last  few  days 
of  my  visit,  fully  occupied  as  they  were  with  the 
collection  and  packing  of  printed  material  and 
preparations  for  departure.  I  left  with  the  two 
Americans,  Messrs.  Bullitt  and  Steffens,  who  had 
come  to  Moscow  some  days  previously,  and  trav- 
elled up  in  the  train  with  Bill  Shatov,  the  Com- 
mandant of  Petrograd,  who  is  not  a  Bolshevik  but 
a  fervent  admirer  of  Prince  Kropotkin,  for  the  dis- 
tribution of  whose  works  in  Russia  he  has  probably 
done  as  much  as  any  man.  Shatov  was  an  emigre 
in  New  York,  returned  to  Russia,  brought  law  and 
order  into  the  chaos  of  the  Petrograd-Moscow  rail- 
way, never  lost  a  chance  of  doing  a  good  turn  to  an 
American,  and  with  his  level-headedness  and  prac- 
tical sense  became  one  of  the  hardest  worked  serv- 
ants of  the  Soviet,  although,  as  he  said,  the  mo- 

231 


mcnt  people  stopped  attacking  them  he  would  be 
the  first  to  pull  down  the  Bolsheviks.  He  went 
into  the  occupied  provinces  during  the  German 
evacuation  of  them,  to  buy  arms  and  ammunition 
from  the  German  soldiers.  Prices,  he  said,  ran 
low.  You  could  buy  rifles  for  a  mark  each,  field 
guns  for  1 50  marks,  and  a  field  wireless  station  for 
500.  He  had  then  been  made  Commandant  of 
Petrograd,  although  there  had  been  some  talk  of 
setting  him  to  reorganize  transport.  Asked  how 
long  he  thought  the  Soviet  Government  could  hold 
out,  he  replied,  "We  can  afford  to  starve  another 
year  for  the  sake  of  the  Revolution." 


THE    END 


232 


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